#if anyone wants to translate they are free to

[i-never-forgot]

thinking about dusknoir. (again.)

thinking about dusknoir sitting back once he’s (presumably) released from dialga’s service and feeling lost. thinking about dusknoir wondering what on earth he’s going to do now that he’s free and still alive with a big bright beautiful world to explore. thinking about how intimidated he would be at the thought of facing the repercussions of his actions but willing to embrace it since he was given a second lease on life. thinking about him not expecting to find forgiveness from those he hurt for so long—but grovyle and celebi are far kinder than he deserves and he spends much of his time trying to earn it despite them telling him he needn’t do so.

thinking about how dusknoir just about kills himself trying to repay all the debts he feels that he owes. thinking about how he doesn’t really know how to function in a world that isn’t decrepit and dangerous. thinking about how grovyle and celebi have to remind him that they’re not really sure how to navigate it either but they’re all in it together, for better or for worse. thinking about dusknoir realizing at some point that he doesn’t need to put on airs anymore, that he could just be himself—that how sincere he was while in the past could translate now.

thinking about grovyle and celebi slowly learning the real him, beneath the mask and the bravado and the fear he’d clung to for so long. he’s courteous, he’s considerate, he’s kind—and his knowledge and experience certainly help them immensely while they travel. he grows protective of them so fast they’re suffering a little bit of emotional whiplash, seeing how ruffled he gets when strangers approach and he’s gauging whether they’re friends or foes. (arceus help anyone that decides to attack, rob, or deceive them—I don’t know of anyone who’d wittingly incur the blinding wrath of a 7’3” mercenary ghost-type.)

thinking about dusknoir taking the brunt of hits in mystery dungeons without flinching, not even hesitating to put his own health and safety at jeopardy for their sake, since they’re more prone to type disadvantages. he seems surprised when they do the same for him or scold him for putting himself in danger, not thinking for a moment that they’d be concerned for him still, after everything he did. it’s an adjustment they all have to work through, and he discovers that it feels…nice, to be fussed over. really nice, like he was worth something more than the blood he’d shed.

thinking about them being reunited with lu, seeing him older and wiser and settled. grovyle and celebi are overjoyed and dusknoir is exceedingly glad (if overwhelmed) to see the boy all grown up and prospering. lu almost attacks him but listens to grovyle and celebi’s reasoning, thankfully. it’s a slow and painstaking process, but they make up with time. eventually lu admits without as many words that he looks up to dusknoir as a father figure. after that they grow closer than ever and if dusknoir thinks about it too long he starts to tear up (no he’s just got something in his eye look away).

thinking about dusknoir having such conflicting feelings over eliana not being there—relief and disappointment in equal measure. he wants to reconcile with her like he has with lu, but at the same time he’s terrified of facing the layers of complexity that colored their relationship. he considered lu a ward of sorts, an apprentice, someone to give advice to. but eliana was his equal, his contemporary. he respected her more than even chatot or wigglytuff. she treated him like a normal person and for the first time in his life he knew what it meant to crave domesticity. she almost made him consider altering his ways—and that’s what had made her so dangerous. he wants what they had back so badly, but he knows that she has every right to hate him and never want to speak to nor lay eyes on him again.

thinking about them forming an exploration team. thinking about them deliberating over a name for several days, grovyle struggling and celebi arguing and dusknoir finally proposing ‘sunrise’ since it was so integral to all of their lives (but especially his in particular). they agree unanimously and it’s set in stone, and grovyle and celebi are a little surprised by his capacity for poeticism. they primarily take rescue and criminal apprehension missions and work up the ranks quickly. their name becomes revered through the whole continent and even the most hardened criminals hesitate to commit crimes anywhere relatively close to treasure town. (it doesn’t matter. they still hunt them down. they enjoy traveling, so it gives them an excuse to do so. dusknoir can keep their bounties in his belly so hauling them back in to Magnezone is no issue.)

thinking about how time passes. thinking about how he grows comfortable in his own skin, how he starts to heal and learn and grow, how he comes to he understand what it means to be (mostly) at peace with the world, with those for whom he is fondest, and himself. thinking about how he doesn’t feel any true closure until he can reconcile with eliana. thinking about how conflicted he feels just at the thought of seeing her again, but how badly he wants to. thinking about how he would dwell on it for so long that he’s surprised when she actually shows up.

he doesn’t fault her for attacking him, for mistrusting him, for not wanting to be in the same vicinity as him. but he tries—by Arceus, he tries so hard to win her back over. he craves her good opinion so terribly bc she was really the one that started his journey to redemption. he remembers those lengthy conversations and late nights researching (even if, by then, he’d been in the middle of realizing his plot—but it hadn’t been easy by any means, admittedly) and wants for nothing more than for her to confide in him again. he’ll take what he can get, but…perhaps he goes a bit overboard.

he does everything he can to help her around her periphery that wouldn’t immediately set her hackles to rise. he leaves items or books for her to find, keepsakes or rocks or flowers that remind him of her. he offers to help her when she needs it but backs off when she inevitably refuses. he doesn’t protest when she insists on exploring with grovyle or Celebi instead of him even though it might be more convenient (or safe) sometimes. he takes her passive-aggression and snide remarks and hostility without a single complaint, even when grovyle tries to intervene or mediate for his sake. he feels he deserves it. if it’s part of his reparations to pay in letting her work out her anger, he’ll endure it gladly.

and once he does win her trust again, he’s all in. he cares about all of them, but especially her, so so much it aches. he would sooner die than see her come to harm ever again. he’ll spend the rest of his life making sure he earns it over and over again. she’s worth that and so much more to him. she changed him, for the better. he owes her his life, everything.

[hualianisms]

Not father & son, not master & disciple, but a secret third thing

First of all, let me preface this by being clear that everyone is free to headcanon anything they want and like/dislike anything they like/dislike! That being said, sometimes I see international fans interpret FDB as LLH's son, or their dynamic as parent-child or otherwise familial, and as a native chinese speaker, I just wanted to share some reasons why I personally did not interpret them as familial.

Granted, at the start of the show, FDB is kept in the dark and also not up to LLH's level of skill in solving cases. However, FDB quickly catches up in crime-solving skills, intellect and maturity by the 2nd half of the show, after a well-written growth arc. I think the beauty of the characters and relationships in this show is that they grow & evolve, and are meant to do so. The dynamic that LLH & FDB had in episode 1 is quite different from their dynamic at the end of the show. By the later episodes, they are 2 adults who are very much equals.

Why I don't read them as father & son:

LLH & FDB act and speak in a manner that is far too informal & familiar with one another, which would be extremely inappropriate for any kind of parent & child, even a surrogate one. Several times, FDB calls LLH by just his first name "Lianhua", and sometimes even calls him "Damn Lianhua" when he is angry/upset at LLH. This would be extremely rude for a disciple to call a master, or a son to call a father. No son talks to his father the way FDB talks to LLH, and no disciple talks to their master like that. Unless the son/disciple hates the father/master, and is outright rejecting his father/master altogether. As we see in the show, not only does FDB not hate LLH at all, he instead cares deeply for LLH and would do anything to save him. Why, then would someone scold/curse someone they care about? Does the trope of the upset spouse/partner sound familiar?

For comparison, see FDB's interactions with He Xiaohui, who he is close to - he is informal & affectionate with her, but never calls her anything other than "娘 niang" ("mother"). I can't emphasize enough how taboo it is in Chinese culture to ever call your parent or parental figure by their name under any circumstance.

2. In ep 31, FDB himself explicitly rejects the idea of LLH as his shifu and himself as LLH's disciple, responding that he is too old to be LLH's disciple and it was merely a joke. He clearly sees LLH as an equal, and rejects the notion of their relationship being anything other than that of 2 adult equals. LLH also tells his shiniang that FDB is not his disciple, and a few episodes ago LLH told FDB that he has never understimated FDB.

Coding/hints as something other than platonic:

Zhiji/zhijiao - FDB calls LLH his 知交 zhijiao in ep 19, and 知己 zhiji in ep 34. "In this life, I, Fang Duobing, recognize you as my only zhiji." is practically a love declaration. And this bond is reciprocated by LLH, bc in a deleted line in ep 19, translated by forayuarchive on twitter, LLH is the one who first calls FDB his zhijiao.

To clarify, Zhiji is not specifically a romantic term, but it's what was used in both The Untamed and Word of Honor - both dramas based on danmei novels with canon gay main pairings - to bypass censorship, to code the bond between the main duo as deeper than your typical platonic male friendship. (See this post for a detailed explanation of the significance/history behind the term zhiji, and see this twitter thread for an explanation of the meaning of zhijiao in MLC - especially how zhijiao is specifically mutual, reciprocated).

2. Married bickering - forayuarchive on twitter has discussed in these twitter threads how the tone of many of LLH & FDB's interactions (especially FDB) is similar to how married couples or romantic partners speak to one another bc of the level of familiarity, tone and language. For my fav example, see this note (translation by forayuarchive) that FDB left LLH in ep 35, which reads pretty much like a note that a spouse/partner might write when leaving their shared house in a hurry.

3. "Xiaobao" - Personally as a native Chinese speaker, LLH calling FDB "xiaobao" in front of everyone is a level of intimacy that genuinely would make me feel embarrassed to hear as a third party. 小宝 xiao bao (literal meaning = "little treasure") is usually something you call actual babies/children AND is FDB's family nickname for him, so if you're calling a grown man that in front of everyone including his colleagues, family and even strangers, then one might assume he is likely either your biological family or your romantic partner. (For comparison, just imagine calling your s/o their parent's special childhood nickname for them at work.)

4. Deleted lines where FDB calls LLH "xiaohua'er". 小花儿 Xiaohua'er ("little flower") is very intimate and feels like something someone might call a lover. Or, at least, definitely not a platonic shifu, even less so a parental figure. (For meta on the names that LLH & FDB use for one another, see forayuarchive's twitter thread.)

5. More deleted scenes (translated by forayuarchive on twitter), perhaps cut due to censorship, which make apparent LLH's high regard and deep care for FDB. For e.g., a line of internal monologue by LLH in ep 40, translated here by forhenjun, shows that LLH thinks of FDB as the only person in his two lifetimes who has always treated him as a human being rather than putting him on an unfair pedestal.

6. Official MLC accounts act like as if they ship them.

As murderedbyhomework mentioned, there is a song in the official soundtrack of MLC called "Fanghua's Day-to-Day Life" (yes, the exact same words as their ship name). Sounds like a couple's daily domestic life, doesn't it?

The official iQiYi Romance youtube channel lists clips of LLH & FDB under the romance category.

The official MLC douyin account posts MVs with emotional captions (e.g. this one translated here by forayuarchive) that emphasize how much both LLH and FDB mean to one another. Another official MLC douyin calls LLH & FDB the person each other trusts the most.

The MLC clips posted by the official Guangdong TV weibo account also has captions such as these (translated by rice_jpg) that straight up describe FDB's feelings towards LLH as "when you like someone" (very similar CN phrasing as the phrasing used to describe romantic crushes).

7. They are subtly paralleled with a canon straight romantic couple (see fanqxiaobao's twitter thread on the parallels btwn LXY/QWM scenes and certain LLH/FDB scenes). MLC also made a distinct change from the novel by not having FDB get married to Princess Zhaoling, even though the drama could have easily given FDB a romance with her.

8. If you're familiar with chinese romantic tropes or the danmei genre, LLH & FDB fit many common romantic tropes e.g. sharing a drink on the rooftop under the moonlight, forgotten first meeting in childhood (and then meeting again properly as adults), power couple fighting side by side (they even held hands!), nianxia, protective younger ml, sickly older mc - just to name a few. Danmei even has many stories of shizun/shifu & disciple pairings who fall in love as adult equals.

There's honestly lots more but these are just some off the top of my head. Again everyone is free to interpret anything! This is just me explaining why as a native chinese speaker I personally did not read their dynamic as that of a father and son.

[kagoutiss]

makes u all look at my favorite OoT development interview (this is the Zelda Dungeon translation of it, there are probably other versions out there)

original japanese interview is here. but anyway yeah i like going thru old interviews from the late 90s/early 00s sometimes because you can find little gems like this? which i think can help give more context for how parts of the games were originally conceptualized, and with this one, the description of Ganondorf’s first appearance as a human being as intentionally neutral, in contrast to his previous appearances as Ganon, presenting his origins as a human containing good & evil, and them having to actually dial back the deviousness of his first voice recordings to better suit him, is. it’s just very very precious to me lol

also the staff having a funny nickname for him based on the name of a cold medicine they had on hand, bc so many of them kept coming down with colds at the time is very cute ahsfjsjfhsk

[jamisonwritestf2trash]

I forgot I made these

[weizhiyuan]

Seems like Jake’s friends hid numbered little green frogs in his house during a Lunar New Year’s party and as I’ve learned this might be a tiktok trend?? Wish him luck finding them all bc apparently he’s at 98…

[leqclerc]

Charles, Laurent, Andrea and Xavi explaining what pre-race prep entails [originally broadcast as part of a feature on Canal+ ahead of the British Grand Prix 2019]

[ts3creatorscave]

Creator Community Good Faith Practices

Here at the Creator’s Cave, our mission is to create a ‘safe space’ for people to learn how to create new content and mods for The Sims 3, and share their knowledge of how to create new content and mods for the Sims 3.

Frequently, new custom content (CC) is generated by making edits to existing CC. As part of the above mission, we feel it is required of us to encourage ‘Good Faith’ practices, and to discourage ‘Bad Faith’ practices when utilizing content from other creators in your CC or mods.

We've made a  list of ‘Good Faith’ and ‘Bad Faith’, and ‘Grey Area’ practices to serve as guidelines for both existing and aspiring creators.

We asked those in the discord to help distill and tweak it, and will continue to make alterations based on feedback from the creator community. These guidelines are primarily enforced by the community itself, and other creators may decline to provide assistance to someone who is using ‘Bad Faith’ practices.

Here’s a link to the doc for any interested: TS3 Creator Good Faith Practices

[ruvviks]

my favorite parts of draft zero of the diner thus far

[fairdale]

fav songs that remind you of kitty?🫶🏻

(this is me just looking for recs really)

okay!! so, i might have gone a bit overboad but i love making playlists and sharing songs and you just gave me the perfect idea soo i did a little something sdklfskl

so basically it goes from kit's childhood, to him discovering he's a shadowhunter, to him falling for ty, to him leaving, to him finding a new family with jem, tessa and mina.

maybe some people won't agree with my choices, but i think they fit his story pretty much (it can be a little open to interpretation which i like) and they sound really good together.

i personally love them, so i hope you do too and that you discover new music to love <3

[inkbery]

hey. hey. psst. listen to these <3 you'll like it i promise

[alpinelogy]

10 & 19!

Lourdes do you have the slightest idea what have you just asked me? Thank you so much for asking :DD

10. Is there a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?

maybe we got lost (in translation) a thousand times over. Beyond the fact that it is my second fic that has broken the 100 kudos barrier which is already insane to me cause I did not expect anyone to read it since its a niche ship imo, the way people see the fic is so different from the way I saw it as I wrote it. For me it is a fic mainly about language and communication and how it changes based on who we talk with. Also specifically Esteban's relationship with English is very much based on my own experience with it, from being thrown into an English-speaking group and told to swim to English slipping in even when he is speaking in a different language ('the language spoken is a mess of French and English') Meanwhile at least from comments people see the relationship between Esteban and Lance way more strongly than I do. Which fair, it was partially written as a love letter to my bilingual friends who try to understand me even when my brain does not comprehend language and in hindsight I sometimes ignored the language part in favor of developing their friendship so I can see where they are coming from. And the fic is tagged as estelance so... lol Essentially what I am trying to say here is that people focused on way more on a part I considered secondary than I did while writing it, but I can see why. Also I've gotten so many nice comments on it and even tho I forgot to respond to them I do reread them on the regular because they spark so much joy (also first time someone whose writing I enjoy commented on my fic and it sent me for a loop lol)

19. Give us a small teaser from one of your WIPs.

I actually dont have that many wips rn, I know, shocking, its mostly just scribbled ideas and disconnected scenes. And kinkmeme claims cause I currently have uh... 50 of those

Anyway i do have this. A race engineer!Oscar AU Loscar in which Logan has never been normal about anything related to Oscar. Ever. Starring Logan as a pining mess, Oscar as the calm and collected love interest and Fred, Alex, and Liam as the victims of Logan's pining

“Good morning Logan.” Oscar says as a first thing on the first day of testing over the radio and Logan returns back to his thoughts of screaming, almost vibrating out of his seat in excitement. Goes back to his year old promise of not doing anything stupid ten seconds into the season. Hopes that when the cameras catch his inevitable joy after he gets back to the garage it will be brushed off to just being glad to be back in the car, rather than anything else. As a worst case scenario, he will just put up the Alex Albon patented peace signs because those always somehow make pictures so much more grounded and Alex is really onto something there, Logan needs to study it. He will need it for this year. Probably. Maybe. Most likely. It's fine. It's, whatever. It's definitely not that Logan also spends so much time looking at Oscar in meetings that Fred has noticed. It's definitely not that Fred, with all the subtlety he has, cornered Logan in his drivers room and unceremoniously asked what gives two days into the season. Logan deserved that one probably. When Logan tries to brush him off, it seemingly works because Fred lets himself be brushed off, does not mind Logan redirecting the conversation onto another topic instead. Logan does not know what actually awaits him days later. It's Liam this time, who corners him a few days later, after testing, after the first race weekend of the year properly starts, right after the last free practice before qualifying. Being Formula Two teammates must have done something to their understanding of personal space between each other because Liam waltzes into his driver's room like he owns the place without even knocking. Logan has a half mind to kick him out just for that, force him to knock before entering.

(this got long but look, this is 300 words out of 7.8k that i am fighting to stay under 10k it's small okay?)

fic writer ask game

[accirax]

y'all i accidentally finally looked at the lyrics to Deep Cover (i had been trying to avoid them to stay mostly spoiler free) and--

OH MY GOD are we finally going to get a video that shows what life inside the prison looks like??? i had been hoping that would be the case for Double to further showcase what the relationship between Mikoto and John looked like; i didn't expect it to happen here! i have been wishing for an MV like that for forever please deliver milgram team xoxo (/j)

[iolypse]

blood debt.

Phil does not get a chance to wipe her blood off his hands until Tallulah has fallen asleep and he manages to will himself from her and Chayanne's bedside. They've pushed their mattresses together, determined to keep vigilant in close proximity throughout the night.

They are unsuccessful. They are children, after all, drained by pulsing adrenaline and cold terror coursing through their veins. Only when Chayanne's head hits the pillow, an arm thrown protectively over Tallulah, does Phil silence himself and stagger out of the bunker, double and triple checking all of the locks before he finally unravels within the supposedly definite security of his own home.

Wilbur is going to be pissed.

He entrusted Phil to her care, and until now, he had done well. A few nightmares, the occasional slip-up, but Tallulah had been safe. With rune-engraved armor, an army's worth of golden apples and shimmering totems, and five personal bodyguards dedicated to her survival, she should have been fine.

Then the sky itself rolled over and everything began and ended in quick succession.

Her death was inevitable, Phil tells himself, as her blood burns beneath his fingernails. There is only so much one can do against a swarm like that. There is only so much one can do against a being of unreality that should not exist and does not fall.

They left that fight one life lighter, lifelong guilt laid where it once was. His teeth taste like iron. His tongue is dry as bone. They were not meant to see the morning's sunrise.

At least she did not die alone.

Hands shaking, Phil turns on the faucet and scrubs until he cannot tell the blood swirling down the drain from his own.

[banqanas]

Everyone on twitter are doing this so i want to do it too!!!! Summary of my oshi activities for 2023!!!!!

It was a very FANTASTIC year!!!!!

Template source from Sanrio twitter

[thenon-fictiondays]

Hirano to Kagiura light novel translation 2-1

Chapter 2: Summer preparations.

Part 1

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T/N: (1) Japanese schools typically start summer break much later than Western schools, so that's why they had an entire semester's worth of exams before summer break and why they haven't gone home yet

“Wait, …….hm……?”

Facing his luggage, which is unusually disheveled for him, Hirano groaned.

Even as he turns the bag he’d started packing in preparation for going home inside and out, he can’t find what he’s looking for.

“Not here either, huh…”

He has not a clue where they might be, and he tilts his head at the unexpected turn of events. He’d of course checked the floor, as well as in the bed, the hallway, and even the dining hall.

He always takes them out before he goes to sleep, so there can’t possibly be that many places he could’ve left them. But unfortunately, once something becomes a habit, you stop thinking about it while you do it.

It’s probably not that he put them in a different place from normal after taking them out, but there might have been something out of the ordinary.. In fact, last night Hanzawa had suddenly come over.

Although he’d come inside after hurriedly knocking on the door, he didn’t seem to have anything in particular to do, and had been acting strangely. He had looked uncomfortable too, but—had Hirano taken them out by that point?

He can’t remember clearly.

As he recalls, Kagiura came to this space and was loafing around, saying how nice the freshly washed sheets felt. Thanks to him, they’d gotten all wrinkled, so Hirano had scolded him and made him set them straight.

Because Kagiura hadn’t put the sheets back on before bathing unlike Hirano, the mattress pad was uncovered. Hirano had made him put them on immediately afterward, saying “even so, that doesn’t mean you go invite yourself into someone else’s bed”.

Even if he tries thinking back, he can’t remember the gist of his own movements.

Both the left one and the right one are gone, so the probability that they fell out is low. The backings weren’t loose, so it’s also unlikely they got caught on something. And yet he can’t find them anywhere, a situation that has him scratching his head in frustration.

“What’s wrong? Hirano-san.”

At the sound of the voice that rang out from beside him as he spaced out, Hirano noticed his roommate for the first time since he’d returned.

“Oh, welcome home. It’s not a big deal, but I can’t find my earrings. I thought they fell somewhere around here, though.”

When he added as an afterthought that he doesn’t take them off outside, so they must be in the dorm, Kagiura crouched down to the floor.

“I’ll help you look for them.”

“Thanks, but it’s fine. I’ll find them on my own. Keep an eye out just so you don’t step on them though, okay?”

“Got it. But it’ll be a problem if you don’t find them, right?”

“Yeah, but it’s not like the piercings will close up if I don’t wear them for a day or two. That aside, Kagi-kun, I thought you said you’d be doing free practice today once you got back from dropping off your school bag. You promised your friends you’d be there, didn’t you?”

Under the blazing sun with summer vacation just around the corner, Kagiura apparently still goes on runs despite club activities having ended. He’d exclaimed as much when they’d run into each other at lunchtime. 

He was probably venting the stress from the final exams. For Kagiura, unskilled at studying, he’d probably been quite run down by his poor showing on the midterms.

With the support of Hirano, for whom taking care of his kouhai was no struggle, he’d been able to get through them safely, but they were scores that he, even as a sports recommendation student, couldn’t brush off, so he had, as he put it, “studied as a hard as a student preparing for entrance exams”.

Club is on break today because the advisor, current captain, and incoming captain were at a meeting at another school. It is an act of mercy given the temperature, but for Kagiura, who’d just managed to get through exams, it is not fortuitous timing.

“Ah! …..I’m heading out.”

His head snaps up, suddenly fidgety as he remembers.

He’s energetic in spite of the heat.

As he wakes up every day with him and comes to understand his daily routines, Hirano has nothing but admiration for the overwhelming differences in their physical activity.

“See you later.”

At the sight of Kagiura rushing out the door, Hirano’s face suddenly falls.

Ever since he came here, the moment he leaves, the room feels unpleasantly silent. 

No other pair in any of the other dorm rooms is a match for his relationship with his roommate, who has completely opened up to him—a fact of which Hirano is proud. He feels it all the more strongly for having been in the kouhai position himself a year ago.

There is just one more week until summer break.

It got a little too quiet.

Hirano’s family home, which houses their family of three, is seldom lively, as his father is quite reticent. 

They all get along, and from his point of view as the child, they’re a happy family, but it’s a little lonely for someone who has gotten used to living in a group with age-mates.

“I didn’t think anything of it last year, though…”

Mumbling his grievances, he stands and stretches his aching back.

In his line of sight is the terry cloth blanket rolled up on his kouhai’s bed, in disarray as if to illustrate his trouble with getting up in the morning.

On the off chance that his earrings ended up here, Hirano cautiously searches the sheets before fixing them back in place, but unfortunately they are nowhere to be found. His ears were pierced with titanium earrings, the downside of which is that they’re not particularly shiny, so they’re difficult to find in situations like this.

Reluctantly, Hirano re-packs his bag and gets started on his homework. He’s preparing for the summer term prep school course. Besides that, there’s also countless practice exams.

There is not much leisure time in the summer breaks of high school second years.

It’s not like he’s spending the entire time applying for intensive courses, and he has more time to hang out and go places compared to usual, but the passage of time is most definitely changing from last year.

As long as Kagiura can graduate, he’ll probably also get into college with a sports recommendation.

His gaze going soft at the pointless supposition, Hirano begins solving the problem set.

As if he has entered an empty space cut off from the world, the cries of the cicadas outside become distant. The blood is rushing in his fingertips, and the point where they touch the shaft of his mechanical pencil feels prickly.

Preparations for the cultural festival will begin tomorrow.

In the short time before summer break, each class will work out their plan and divide up the tasks amongst themselves.

It takes a fair bit of time to determine the details of the project. If their plan does not pass through the two-step audition process of an initial document screening and a secondary interview, they will not be able to proceed with it.

That said, events must be limited in the amount of space and materials they are allotted in order to have a high application-to-acceptance ratio. In effect, one could say the classes are like food truck vendors competing with one another for curb space.

For that reason, during this period, when they take charge of the cultural festival planning committee, there are times when they’re so swamped with work that they complain that even studying for exams is easier.

The judging panel consists of representatives from each class’s planning committee, the student council, and a faculty member in charge of the event. The festival judging, which is hard on both those doing the judging and those being judged, will start this week.

Hirano’s class, 2nd year class E, has already started narrowing down their plan, and are contriving to get it past the judging as quickly as possible.

Their plan is to make a haunted house spanning two classrooms and the hallway beside them. 

They will remove the door and insert a passageway, using a bigger space than one would typically imagine for a culture festival program and making it difficult to tell how often the lurking ‘ghost’ will appear. The person playing the ghost will work the distance between the entrance and exit, in order to decrease the risk that someone will find out where they’ll be ahead of time and lose interest.

Under the circumstances of blocking the corridor, it will be a one-way street, so implementation of their plan is limited to the vicinity of the staircase, and they must carefully consider emergency exit routes.

The amount of time it takes to prepare the classrooms is enormous, and on top of that they will be dressing in costume, so the amount of enthusiasm they are putting into the cultural festival is considerable.

Even Hirano, who is among the less ardent group, finds his spirits raised.

Now then, what about Kagiura?

*****

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[calla-lilly]

hi!! these artbreeders are looking amazing, may i request one for harry beloved when you’re finished with s2? 💕

he 🥺