#council tax D

[househuntingscotland]

2 bedroom flat for sale on Gardner Street, Partick, Glasgow

Asking price: £235,000

[meggsssart]

My precious blorbo Elden

Typical good boy paladin who is this close to being done with his party's lawless bullshit

[emo-batboy]

Things Battinson Totally Did During His First Year of University

Using Unhinged or Odd Things I Also Did as a College Freshman :D

Note: for this list, let’s believe Bruce was living in an (admittedly expensive and swanky) dorm because it is required for first-years, especially those entering at a young age, and Alfred told him he needed to make friends. Also yes I did every single thing on this list. I never claimed to be a role model

Bruce, to his TA: I’m so sorry I’m late to class. I gave blood a few hours ago and almost fainted on the way here, but it won’t happen again.

Signs up for a class called “Age of Dinosaurs” despite it not being required whatsoever and proceeds to work his entire schedule around it

Bruce: Your mental health is super important. If you think you should see the on-campus therapist, go see them. Friend: Fine. I’ll sign up for therapy if you sign up for therapy too. Bruce: Hold on-

Finds a loophole in his housing contract that allows him to get a pet frog, calls him kermit :)

Gets a second frog because Kermit was lonely, names it Constantine after Muppets Most Wanted, then realizes that they’re gay for each other. Wonders if the rainbow-colored rocks he got them triggered anything

Swings dramatically between calling Alfred every single day and ghosting him for weeks, cries when he realizes what he did

“Accidentally” joins the student body council, doesn’t know what he’s doing, gets re-elected anyway

Molds a dragon out of Laffy Taffy instead of doing his work

Bruce: *joins Honors, gets all A’s, takes the max amount of classes, has several minors, overachieves* Also Bruce: I’m a failure.

Breaks into a building after hours to study because NO ONE KNOWS HOW TO SHUT THE FUCK UP AT THE LIBRARY

Bruce: I will not get seasonal depression this year. Bruce: *gets real and seasonal depression that year*

Meticulously schedules his day with a color-coded planner because if he sits down for too long, the thoughts will consume him

Gives a presentation to his rhetoric class on how much he likes Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (it is 20 minutes long)

Successfully allocates funding from the student body council to pay for free feminine products in the dorms OUT OF SPITE because someone said it couldn't be done. fuck you, Andrew

Bruce: It is not an all-nighter if I go to sleep before my first class. Friend: It is 7:30am, the sun is in the sky, and your first class is at 12:30. Bruce: But I am getting sleep.

Refuses to go anywhere without his backpack because what if he needs three notebooks at once

Loses over 20 pounds because ✨stress✨ and scares the shit out of Alfred when he comes home for Thanksgiving

Argues with his TA over the one (1) question he got wrong on his Dinosaur exam

Bruce, calling Alfred: Hello father figure. How do I do taxes? Do I have to do them myself? Also, I think I’m having a panic attack.

Joins in on a charity arts-and-crafts project that gives kids books with matching activities made by volunteers, proceeds to commandeer the project because “it’s not color-blind friendly” and rewrites the instructions for everyone

Makes a murder wall

Goes to one (1) sports game and proceeds to leave in the first ten minutes because it’s way too loud wtf is wrong with people

Professor, addressing the lecture hall: I dare you to write an essay about these two sentences. Bruce: *writes an essay about six words, gets a 100, never even read the book*

Crawls into the ceiling for some alone time

Ghosts someone after a date because he’s too scared to tell them he didn’t know it was a date in the first place and now he feels bad

Classmate: How tf does he walk across campus that fast? I go in the same direction he does on my bike, and he’s always ahead of me. Bruce: *is gay sprinting to Dinosaur class*

Refuses to let others use his Favorite Pen TM

Constantly gets mistaken for a Grad Student because he is “so wise and mature” (bestie, that’s the autism)

Alfred: *casually mentions he got into a car accident through text* Bruce: *replies with a meme while hyperventilating because he doesn’t know what to do with that information??!*

Wears a suit to one of his finals

Regularly eats non-organic food for the first time in his life, proceeds to learn about several allergies Alfred forgot to mention he has

Writes “What is a Hot Pocket?” in calligraphy and proceeds to laugh his ass off alone in his dorm because he is so exhausted he’s reached the point of delusion

Locks himself out of his dorm right before class, frantically asks the floor group chat if someone can help, proceeds to tell the nice gay man on the floor who saved him “I love you” because his social skills have hit rock bottom

Makes a little music album display next to his desk for his favorite band (Nirvana) His friends call it a shrine, and they are technically correct

Has a blacklist of people he refuses to interact with because Reasons

Counselor: What do you want to do when you graduate? Bruce: *gestures vaguely*

Refuses to take the bus because there are people in there and he doesn’t like those

Loses one of his frogs, how tf did he do that, they’re fully aquatic, oh fuck, this is probably why they got rid of that loophole a year later because unbeknownst to Bruce, he accidentally started a frog revolution in the dorms, btw he SWEARS he did not mean to do that

Has two trash cans in his room: one for the Good Garbage, and one for the Bad Garbage. Only Bruce knows which is which

Bruce: *writes a creative piece about a ship’s final thoughts as it sinks, bringing its passengers down with it* TA: Absolutely lovely, Bruce, but are you okay?

Goes on Night Walks, keeps himself safe by maintaining a level 12 resting bitch face at all times

Earns the nickname “8th floor cryptid” after pacing the halls at 3am when it’s too cold for Night Walks (honestly tho how tf didn’t he get the nickname earlier?)

Bruce: Do you think a depressed person could do this? Bruce: *has a manic episode*

Okay that's all love you BYE

[wndaswife]

hi! do you think you could write smth about mean mommy wanda when she finds out that you've touched w/o permission? thank you so much, im obsessed w all of your fics!!!

breach of trust | wanda maximoff & fem!reader

While she’s away at a city council meeting, you find mommy’s collection of special pictures and can’t help but start touching yourself to them, and she isn’t particularly pleased when she comes home to see her baby having enjoyed herself without her.

Word count: 4963

Tags: smut (kinda), fluff, mdlg, aftercare, breast suckling, masturbation, spanking, degradation, mommy kink, there is crying but i don’t think it’s dacryphilia, but im tagging just in case you’re kinda into it, dom!wanda maximoff, sub!reader | MINORS DNI

gif credit to vanessacarlysle

Mommy was a special, important woman; she was one of the primary representatives for the town’s school district, so on some Sunday mornings she had to leave early in order to make it on time for city council meetings in which they discussed things from tax fund relocations to local events. 

Sometimes they didn’t talk at all about the school district, so mommy ended up leaving her sweet sleeping angel at home for no reason at all — or so she put it. 

But no matter what they discussed at those meetings, those Sundays where Wanda had to leave early were dreadful, for on these mornings you had to wake to an empty bed and no kisses from mommy until around lunchtime. 

Though on most occasions anyways, Wanda made efforts to message you to make sure you’d eaten breakfast and that you were holding up alright without her; she knew how lonely you could get home alone without her, for you wouldn’t let her come home each time without getting an earful of how much you’d missed her.

This morning seemed particularly long for whatever reason, and mommy hadn’t responded to you in about an hour, which meant that she was likely discussing something that did indeed involve the school district this time.

Breakfast was yummy fruits that had been cut up for you and refrigerated before Wanda left so you could have them with your waffles. 

Wanda was happy to see that you weren’t overdoing the whipped cream and syrup like you normally did when you sent her a picture of the breakfast you made, although you did add a few extra spurts of whipped cream after you took the picture to send to her.

You left the syrup as it was, though.

After that, you watched a few cartoons to which Wanda asked which of your stuffies you were cuddling with when you also sent her a picture of you sitting in the living room.

She still hadn’t responded to the picture of you hugging your stuffies close, which you knew she’d especially love because you were holding the bunny stuffie she’d gotten you for Easter a few months ago closest to your chest.

In any case, you were getting antsy and bored and you missed mommy an extra lot this time.

So you decided to start exploring.

You had only moved in with Wanda a few months ago, and though you had been here multiple times before you started living together, you still thoroughly enjoyed looking through mama’s things. 

She was only ever mildly annoyed when you unfolded her clothes, but otherwise she didn’t mind at all when her sweet baby was sitting in the closet looking through her things or sitting at her vanity fiddling with her jewellery. 

There was one time where you were smelling Wanda’s perfume and looking through all her jewellery and makeup, and she sat you down on her lap so the two of you were sitting in front of the vanity while mommy did your makeup and put her jewellery on you and sprayed you with the perfume you liked the most. 

The recollection made you all warm — you loved mommy so much. But it also made you even antsier, for you were now desperate for her attention and you missed her dearly. 

In dire need to feel mama close, you went upstairs and sat on the floor of the walk-in closet. 

Immediately, you unhooked one of her white cashmere pullovers and wore it before digging through the boxes on the top of her side of the closet. 

Most of these boxes had Wanda’s important memories, more expensive jewellery she didn’t often wear, mementos, and other things you really liked to look through because you loved seeing things like photos of her and Tommy and Billy or tickets to her first poetry reading she attended. 

There was a smaller box you hadn’t seen before, a white one set not on the upper shelf, but on the hanging closet organiser that both you and Wanda put some of your smaller things in, like scarves and belts. 

You made space on the ground for the box, moving the other things aside and sitting cross-legged while you inspected the box. 

Unsure why you hadn’t seen the box before during the other times you went through mommy’s things, you curiously opened the box and were met with a collection of pictures. 

Stored on their sides, you couldn’t see the contents of them until you laid the box on the side and carefully pulled the pictures out from the box. 

The sight made your face immediately heat up and you suddenly felt every inch on your body throb with desire and anticipation. 

There were nearly twenty photos of both you and Wanda having sex, all derived from several occasions. You’d known she’d taken them, as she always showed them to you when you were cuddled against her chest feeling all sleepy and happy, but you had no idea she printed them out nor had you seen any of them since she showed them to you the first time. 

There were some of them you liked particularly, photos of just mommy with a handful of her tits or while she was fucking you from behind or while she had you on your knees with your head buried between her thighs, or pictures with her fingers in your mouth or of you buried in her breasts while she rode the strap attached to your hips.

Why did mommy have these?

You felt a throb develop between your legs and you wondered if she used them to get off when she was without you, and though it made you pouty to imagine mama touching herself without you, it drove you up the wall to imagine her alone in bed looking at pictures of her sweet angel and fucking herself to them.

Then you started looking over the pictures of mommy’s tits and her view fucking you from behind and the one where your lips were wrapped around one of her nipples with her hand cradling the back of your head, and you felt yourself inadvertently beginning to press your thighs together, your cheeks heating up exponentially and your yearn to be with mama making it all the more intense.

By the time Wanda replied to your picture of you cuddling with your stuffies calling you adorable and telling you how much she couldn’t wait to be back home with you, you’d already taken your favourite photos to bed and laid them out on the blanket, now too distracted to notice the vibrations of your phone.

When you looked down at them all splayed out, you knew what it was that made your fingers begin to twitch and your knees begin to dig into the soft blankets of the bed, the sheets still a mess and the bed still unmade from when you woke up without mama this morning.

You took a few moments to look them over, each picture, feeling your body thrum impatiently while your mind raced to perhaps lock the images in your memory so you didn’t have to indulge in what edge you were about to spill over.

But that picture — oh, that picture — of mommy cradling the back of your head while you sucked sleepily from her breasts made you ache.

So you slid off your pyjama shorts and slowly took a pillow from against the headboard and slid it between your thighs, securing your knees around it and rolling your hips downwards.

You didn’t even pull your panties to the side at first, because you knew mommy didn’t like when you did anything like this on your own if you at the very least didn’t get her permission first — which she more often than not didn’t bestow, because mommy was a greedy and impatient woman when it came to you.

It wouldn’t be bad if you at least made yourself feel a little good, and your special big girl parts weren’t really touching anything but your panties.

But, oh, the smell of mommy’s cashmere sweater and the pictures of her pretty body made your head all woozy.

You used the same laundry detergent and all, but mommy’s clothes always smelled a little different somehow; it smelled richer, like some of her perfume or her shampoo, though you know it had been washed away in the washing machine.

In any case, you just felt completely surrounded by mama, and when you pulled your panties to the side and began rubbing your throbbing clit against the pillow, you didn’t feel that you were exactly disobeying her when everything surrounding you reminded you of her.

You weren’t sure how long you’d been going at rubbing yourself against the pillow to the photos of mama because you were in a strange place of feeling guilty that you were doing it and not wanting to be conscious of how long you were disobeying her for, and sheer pleasure from riding your pillow looking at pictures of mama that you could just look at over and over and over again, and they’d be there every time you opened your eyes or looked down at the blankets where they were sprawled out.

Though the amount of time you’d been doing it for didn’t matter, at least not to Wanda, who you hadn’t heard come home and walk up to the bedroom.

Perhaps she’d been suspecting that you were up to no good when her baby was uncharacteristically silent over texts, or that you were sleeping and decided not to make too much noise when she came up and looked for you.

Whatever it was, it was only until she dropped her purse on the floor a few feet away from the bed to storm over that it finally broke you from your concentration and made you realize that she’d come home.

By the time you looked up, she took your face in her hands and angled it up so you could look at her.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she growled, looking down at you.

Your stuttered attempts to answer her question ended up being worth nothing when Wanda looked down at the bed and saw the sprawled out photos in front of you. She looked over at the closet and noticed the other photos left on the floor along with the open white box she’d stored them in.

With a hum that was startlingly cool and unassuming, she looked back over to you, her eyes scarily focused as she said, “It seems we have a rat infestation; my things being gone through while I’m not home, my things not being in the same place they were when I set them down.”

You swallowed and kept quiet, for you knew she was leading up to something; if it were not for the frightening steadiness in her voice, then it was the way her fingers remained pressing into your cheeks as she held your head in place.

“Unless you have an explanation as to why those pictures are on the floor, Y/N?” she asked, tipping your head down a bit so you had to look up at her as if you were a guilty puppy.

There was no use lying now, and besides, you’d felt guilty for what you were doing ever since you laid the photos down on the bed.

“It was me, mommy, I made the mess,” you confessed. “And I was doing big girl things without mommy’s permission.”

Wanda’s eyes narrowed slightly, and then she looked down at the sweater you were wearing. The flash in her eyes seemed to be one of adoration, and you at least knew that a part of her appreciated you wearing her clothes when you were home alone.

Indeed, she did see the image of you with your face in her hands while you looked up at her with the sweetest pleading eyes and wearing her clothing to be a most adorable sight.

“Do you know what makes mommies, mommies?” she then asked.

Perking up a little as you thought about it, you answered hopefully, “Having a baby like me to care for?”

“And what does ‘caring’ for a baby like you mean, Y/N?”

You hummed thoughtfully before responding, “Giving me kisses and cuddling me and making me feel like the most special little girl in the world.”

“Oh, of course,” Wanda conceded, smiling at you. 

But her grip on your face did not lessen.

“Yet, if that were the only way mommies care for their babies, then anyone else could do the same and be just as important to you as mommy,” she explained. 

“Sweetheart,” Wanda cooed, “there’s one thing you’re missing.”

When you didn’t answer, looking at her curiously without any implication that you knew what it was that you were missing, mommy said, and tightened her grip on your face, “Discipline — mommies get to discipline their little girls when they’ve been bad.”

She suddenly pushed you back and let go of you, using her other hand to tear the pillow out from between your legs. 

“No, mama, please!” you begged, getting onto your knees and crawling over to her. “I apologised already!”

“I have yet to hear this apology,” she said as she collected the photos from the bed.

She was right — you’d forgotten to apologise.

“I’m sorry! Mommy, I’m sorry! Please don’t give me spankings!”

“I’m happy to see you can take responsibility for your actions, honey, but what kind of precedent would I be setting as your mommy if I let your disobedience go without punishment?” She placed the photos on the nightstand and straightened with her hands on her hips. “Be a good girl and take your clothes off.”

You sniffled and crawled forward further so you could kneel in front of her. “Please, mama, I don’t want to,” you continued to beg.

“Colour?”

“Green,” you answered honestly and sniffled, still hoping she’d take pity on you.

She maintained, “Then I’m sorry, honey, but you need to take your clothes off — now.”

You rubbed your eyes and Wanda clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, reaching down and slapping your hands away from your face.

“You do not want to make mommy angrier than she is right now, angel,” she snarled from beyond a clenched jaw as she tightened a hand around your wrist. “I’ve been dealing with bullshit all afternoon and I come home to see you fucking off as if I’ve never disciplined you or taught you any form of manners in your life. The punishment I currently see fit is nothing compared to what I will force you to take if you don’t get your fucking ass up and take your clothes off.”

You knew there was nothing else to do but obey when mommy was this angry.

Earlier, you hadn’t realised how upset she already was; she must’ve been holding her tongue or trying her best to maintain her patience. She told you her punishment for you would be worse if you didn’t undress right this moment, but you also knew that the punishment you were getting now was already worse than what she’d originally intended when she caught you masturbating.

You took mommy’s sweater off first and then your panties, but when you moved to take off the loose cropped pyjama top that barely covered your tits, mama hooked a finger under the strap of it and released it so it slapped lightly against your shoulder.

“Leave this on,” she said. “I like how they make your tits look.”

Her thumb ran across one of your breasts and she thumbed for a moment at your nipple, amused at how quickly it hardened and how you pressed your lips trying not to moan in the face of how you were just about to be punished for indulging in pleasure.

She let go of you and sat down on the edge of the bed, adjusting her posture to allow you enough space to lay yourself across her lap.

Not protesting even a little bit, you crawled over to the edge and laid your stomach on her thighs. She moved around a bit so you were able to lay both your arms and legs down on the bed, leaving only your hips arched up a bit with how you were sprawled out across her lap.

“Spread your legs,” she told you, and you obeyed, making sure both of your legs were still on the bed so you could allow her proper access to you.

Wanda draped an arm over your waist and secured you in place while her other hand parted your thighs a bit more so she could lean over and inspect your cunt.

“Look at how wet this pussy is,” she said, disappointed. “You got so far without mommy’s help. Are you a big girl now, Y/N? You don’t need mommy to make you feel good?”

“No, mommy!” you protested immediately. “I-I was looking at pictures of you, mommy.”

She hummed, seemingly unconvinced, but you couldn’t tell for sure now that you were sprawled out across her lap, unable to see her face.

A thumb delved into your folds and spread you open, revealing just how sticky you’d gotten all on your own.

“It’s disgusting how good you seemed to have felt while knowing you were disobeying your mommy,” she said. “Mommy is very, very disappointed in you, honey, and not only because you disobeyed me, but because this filthy little cunt is telling me that you have no problem doing big girl things on your own. Does it feel better on your own, Y/N?”

“No, mama!”

“How will you prove it to me?”

“I can prove it to you — I can. I’ll take my spankings, mommy. I’m a good girl. I am. I made a mistake, but I love my mommy and I don’t want to do anything without mommy’s help. I was being selfish and I just missed you so much.”

“That’s sweet, honey. Indeed, you will have made it up to me should you take your spankings like a good, obedient girl. I understand little things like you make mistakes, and perhaps if it were any other day, I might choose not to punish you at all. But because you chose to be selfish today, I see it fit that I get to be selfish too. I’ve had a terrible day, and I want to be able to do what I want with my little girl to make me feel better. Does that sound fair to you, angel?”

You nodded quickly.

“Good,” Wanda said, “because mommy is feeling very, very upset.”

Worrying that perhaps if you questioned her at all you might set her off even more, but feeling curious anyways, you cautiously asked, “Why are you upset, mama…?”

Wanda took a handful of your ass, inspecting its soft, supple skin being taken into her hand. “Dealing with dim-witted idiots who seem to have no intention of saying anything worth anyone’s time yet taking it all up nevertheless has made mommy rather frustrated,” she answered. “Do you know how frustrating it is, baby, to expect so much more from someone, only to be disappointed?”

You were sure the question was rhetorical, so you could bury your face in your arms in shame while mommy delivered your first spank, eliciting a muffled yelp from you.

She continued, “I pour so much time and effort into those useless city council meetings, and yet it’s always the school district representatives that get overlooked. You have no idea how upset it makes me, angel, to come home and see you fucking a pillow of all things, because you were too much of a desperate, horny slut to listen to mommy’s rules.”

Another spank.

Wanda squeezed your ass and dug her fingers into your stinging skin.

“I want to hear you apologise again,” she demanded.

Immediately, you raised your head and said, “I’m sorry for not listening to mommy’s rules! I’m so sorry, mommy.”

Spank.

“What rules did you break, exactly, Y/N?” she pressed.

You swiped at your eyes and answered, “Baby isn’t allowed to touch her big girl parts and do big girl things without mommy’s permission.”

Another spank — this time, one on both sides of your ass.

“Why did mommy make that rule, sweetheart?”

“Because I’m too little to make big girl decisions,” you said, “and only mommy is big enough to know what’s best for me.”

Wanda rewarded your answer with a quick swipe of her thumb through your pussy, lightly grazing against your clit, before returning her hand to squeezing at your ass. “And don’t you see what happens when little girls make big girl decisions? Hm?” she pried. “Now you’re all filthy and ill-mannered, and mommy did not train you to be like that.”

Then suddenly, mommy was spanking you over and over, all over your ass, covering your delicate skin in flushed shades and trails of her nails.

“No one seems to want to listen to me today, honey,” she gritted. “And I thought that my baby, out of everyone, would respect mommy enough to listen to her.”

Seemingly propelled forward by the verbalisation of her anger, Wanda used one hand to spread your ass and delivered a spank to your pussy, making you cry out into the bed sheets.

“Nevermind the other idiots from the council, but I walked into this room feeling very betrayed and ignored by the sweetest, most beloved thing I’ve ever made mine,” Wanda explained sternly. “And there are not enough words in English nor Sokovian that could sufficiently express to you how upset that makes me feel, bunny.”

It was not the pain from the spankings that made you break, but instead, it was mommy talking about how betrayed and ignored she felt that did it.

“I didn’t mean to make mama feel bad,” you sniffled and rubbed at your eyes with the back of your wrist.

Wanda paused her spankings and replied, “I didn’t quite catch that, sweetheart.”

You raised your head and took in a deep breath to steady yourself before saying, “I was just being selfish, mama. I really love mommy so much.” You rubbed your eyes again when tears started forming. “I’m not a big girl. I still need my mommy. I’m still just a baby and I still need mommy.”

From the way you were facing, you couldn’t see what mommy looked like when you said all that, and you weren’t sure if you were about to see what other punishments she had in store for when you disobeyed her even further.

You buried your face in your arms again and shut your eyes.

“Why don’t you tell mommy more about that?” Wanda asked, her voice smooth but not indicative of if she was upset or not.

Sniffling, you turned your head to the side so she’d be able to hear you when you spoke. “About what, mama…?”

A soft hand ran down the expanse of your stinging ass, almost soothingly.

“About how much you need your mommy,” she clarified. “Come on, honey. I want to hear about how my sweet little girl still needs her mommy.”

You wiped your face of your tears and raised your head.

“U-Um,” you stuttered, now feeling a little shy now that mama was asking for all your mushy feelings about her. “Well, I’ll always need mommy. Need mama to dress baby and make breakfast and cut up baby’s fruits in little shapes.”

The more you talked about it, the more lighthearted you became, and you perked up a bit as you started thinking more and more about what you needed Wanda for. “And!” you started again, excitedly. “And I need mommy to give me baths and cuddle me and give me kisses when I have nightmares. And I need mommy to hold my hand when I’m scared, and I need mommy to help me do big girl things.”

While you were speaking, Wanda kept rubbing her palm softly against your ass, and you imagined that she was pleased with what she was hearing for she stopped spanking you and talking about how upset her day had made her.

And mommy always liked petting her baby like that when she was content, like when you laid your head in her lap or when you were resting back against her in the bath.

“I like hearing these pretty things coming out of your mouth, honey,” Wanda said, sounding truly very grateful. 

Then, she pressed a kiss to both sides of your flushed ass and gave you a gentle pat. “Come up and sit with mommy,” she said. “Are you alright? You aren’t feeling too hurt?”

Carefully and modestly as to not be improper by suddenly getting up and jumping into bed with mommy, although you certainly did want to, you sat up and followed mama to where she positioned herself against the headboard. 

You shook your head and crawled over to her, where she sat you down on her lap and took you into her arms. “Feeling okay, mama,” you answered. 

Wanda smiled, and she seemed much more relaxed than she did earlier. She stroked your cheek with her thumb and kissed the tip of your nose. “That’s good, sweetheart,” she whispered. 

She looked down at you in a way that made you just absolutely melt, the way she was holding you close and petting your hair and touching your face. 

“Do you want mommy to make you feel good?” she asked, trailing a hand down to your lower stomach. 

You thought for a moment and Wanda waited patiently, until you cuddled closer and shook your head. Gently, you tugged on one of the buttons of her burgundy blouse and looked up at her pleadingly. 

The picture of you suckling from mama still rang clear in your head, and really, it had been that picture that tipped you over the edge. 

“Oh my,” she breathed out, impressed as she raised her eyebrows. “My little girl always has the best ideas, hm?” 

Wanda pinched your nose, which made you giggle, before she began unbuttoning her blouse, doing it slowly enough so you could watch each one come undone, exposing more and more of her. 

She looked at you with a smile on her face as you watched her unbutton her shirt, simply taken by how much love her little girl had for her. 

When her blouse was unbuttoned with just her bra keeping you from her breasts, Wanda leaned down and kissed your lips and then your forehead. 

You hooked a finger around her bra and looked up at her for permission. She gave you a single nod and, eagerly, you pulled her bra down and released one of her breasts. 

Wanda brought you forward, and your lips immediately latched onto her nipple. She sighed in satisfaction and she leaned back against the headboard, stroking your head softly as you sucked. 

“That’s good, bunny,” she whispered and brushed the corner of your mouth with her thumb. “Ah, your lips are so gentle.”

After a few tender moments, a sudden thought came to you and you unlatched from mommy’s nipple and looked up at her before asking quietly, “Why did you have those pictures, mommy?”

“The pictures of the two of us, angel?” she asked and looked down at you cuddled against her. She tapped your nose with her finger. “The one you were being all naughty with earlier?”

You blushed and turned your face away a little.

Wanda’s other hand that cradled the back of your head used its fingers to tilt your head the other way so you were looking back over at her. “I couldn’t stop looking at them on my phone and decided to get them printed. I was planning on sharing them with you soon, but I couldn’t find the right time,” she told you, her voice sweet and soft.

“It’s partially my fault — what happened earlier,” she then added, her fingers stroking your cheek. “I shouldn’t have kept the treats out where my little kitten could find them.”

She smiled when you giggled and she leaned down to kiss your forehead. 

Then Wanda said quietly, “Thank you for being so sweet and patient with me, baby.” She hugged you closer so you could rest your head on her chest. “I know you did something bad today, but I didn’t have to be as harsh with your punishment as I was. I was just very upset, and seeing you do such things without me made me feel very left out.”

You looked up at her from her, nearly about to tell her how much you loved her again, but Wanda could understand it from how you looked at her. 

“It’s okay for you to make mistakes sometimes, sweetheart, especially when I know you did it just because you missed me. I lost my temper, is all. Thank you for caring for me by being so understanding, even when I was being a little mean. Even little girls care for their mommies too, you know.”

Sitting up a bit, you wrapped your arms around her shoulders and hugged her. “I wanna care for mommy forever and ever,” you voiced proudly. 

“Only if I get to be your mommy forever and ever,” Wanda teased, kissing your cheek and rubbing your back with her other hand. 

“I’ll always need mommy.”

“Then I’ll always need my little girl.”

[phoebejaysims]

Social Clubs Mod - DOWNLOAD

Tired of your sims walking aimlessly through town? No friends, no hobbies, no purpose? Put an end to their lack of a fulfilling social life by creating a million and one clubs for them to join and/or get kicked out of! 

With 50+ activities for you to push, including activities from over 10 different mods, and 4 specialised club types, you can create almost any club you can think of: book clubs, invite-only hangouts, afterschool clubs and more! Grow memberships, take part in tournaments and ship cute little subscription gifts straight to your sim’s door.

Note: This mod is very extensive, so please thoroughly read the documentation in the download that I’ve painstakingly written up.

Compatibility: Should be base game compatible however expansion packs, store content and mods add more content.

7 New Objects: Credit to @aroundthesims who has generously allowed me to use her items as well as @twinsimming who converted 2 items for me. Full credit in the documentation.

Testers: @desiree-uk who not only tested the mod, but contributed ideas for club activities, the banking system and the subscription gift system. @simsdeogloria who kindly offered to test the mod and caught some bugs that I had completely missed.

Credits: Full credit in documentation. However, thank you to @olomayasims​, IcarusAllsorts, Arsil, Buzzler & @zoeoe-sims​, @anitmb​, @greenplumbboblover​, @flotheory​ as I push some of their mods as activities.

Club Types

Custom Club: Push specific activities (or no activity at all) and watch your active and inactive club members congregate and do said activities. Push bowling, swimming, rumba, nectar drinking, collecting, studying, music lessons, among many other things. 

Subscription-Only Club: While members won’t meet up, force them to pay a subscription fee to the club owner for your own purposes. Consider: food subscription service, council-tax payments, school fees.

Book Club: Choose a book for the book club. Your sims will sit together, have discussions, and read said book.

Formal Gathering Club: Set musicians and/or a speaker (podium or pulpit). Have your club members sit down and act like they’re listening to said musicians and speaker. Choose a skill to increase while the club is in operation.

Club Vibes

Clubs can have different vibes depending on the cost and activities, attracting or repelling different types of sims. There are sports, games, intellectual, low-brow and high class clubs. Some personalities will be more inclined to join than others.

Customising Clubs

Set different open days, open hours, required club outfits, subscription fees, gender, age, career and trait requirements/restrictions, forbidden actions etc.

Autonomy

Allow or restrict autonomy in different ways. Make clubs open or closed invite, allowing or disallowing sims to join, leave, or be kicked out of clubs with or without your own input. Put club boards around town and let sims browse. Impress observers by having a great club session and watch them beg to join!

Tournaments

Win tournaments and gain club acclaim. Get cash prizes, find yourself in the newspaper, and find out if any of your fellow club members are playing for the opposing team. Your own sim isn’t exempt from the repercussions of being a club traitor!

Banking

Create Bronzo accounts for your sims. You can link these accounts to schedulers and have the club fee delivered straight into the account. Take out loans, find the best interest rates online and stay out of your overdraft. Try not to get your account details stolen at the all new ATMs that you can place around town and don’t leave your debit card laying around near strangers!

Download MTS: http://www.modthesims.info/d/677428

Conflicts: None.

If you would like to donate to say thank you, you can do that at my Ko-fi, here.

It’s been a long 8 months getting this mod done; thank you all for your patience and enjoy! @ me if you post any pictures of your clubs—I’d love to see your pictures.

[amarynthian-chronicles]

Hello, hello!

Welcome, make yourself comfortable, here are some cakes, tea and hot chocolate, and enjoy your stay. In this little pocket dimension of a blog, you will mostly find posts about our Celestial Jesters and other FNAF content, along with space-themed aesthetic, writing, some silly whimsical quotes, comfy vibes and similar.

I shall be tagging my own writing posts under "jester's privilege chronicles" (these are especially for my longer works) and "amary's chronicles" (these are especially for my shorter little scenes), to make it easier to navigate or find them. For answered asks the tags are "amary answers" and "amary speaks", to find them easily in case they get buried in reblogs. As of recent, I made the tag "amary's art" for my doodles, although I am still a beginner.

Under the cut are links to my AO3 fics and summaries of the current ones, if you are interested!

Have a lovely day and enjoy your stay!

Jester's Privilege Chronicles series:

Sound the Bells: You are a mermaid in charge of the daunting task of managing the sea and your court consists of playful twin Leviathans and an uncooperative Kraken. You also have the disadvantage of being an utter disaster at this mermaid business and you live on land in human form, having the swimming skills of a rock.

Your sea monsters are not too thrilled with you living on land, so they love to cause shipwrecks and general mayhem to get your attention. You try to place a stop to this by having them spend a month with you in the town of Celestial Bay disguised as animatronics.

Sun is thrilled to explore human technology, Moon prowls the night threatening city council members into making better legal acts to protect the sea against pollution, and Eclipse's natural protective Kraken instincts are getting a tad bit out of hand and making him the friendly neighbourhood serial killer. He loves quick solutions to complex problems.

Officer Vanessa is the only one brave enough to keep knocking on your door for some explanations. She is also in charge of a very confused police unit that really needs to get some sleep.

Extended Contract: You are a witch that fell for the oldest trick in the book by giving your name to the mischievous Fae princes of the Celestial Court. Such an inconvenience on what was supposed to be a typical office night. You are honestly not having it. They, however, do seem quite happy about having you. You decide to make a deal with the Fae King to regain your freedom. The only thing that is functional in the whole situation is your phone signal in the Fae Kingdom.

Tip the Scales: You are a charismatic defense lawyer in a constant competition with two ruthless prosecutors that do not understand your ideals about criminals deserving a second chance. You are also housemates with a certain bitter and retired judge, who has a habit of operating at night as a cloaked figure known as the Judge of the Damned, serving justice as he deems fit according to his own moral ideals. In order to solve his frequent habit of going after your clients, you two had established a game of Tip the Scales to keep a balance of which person deserves redemption and who is condemned to damnation. Things get complicated when an old friend gets wrongfully accused. You do all in your power to convince your prosecutor rivals to secretly cooperate with you and help clear his name before you lose the game.

Our Guest: You arrive at a sinister and luxurious castle with the innocent intention of checking why its mysterious residents haven't been paying any taxes or utilities for the past several centuries. Very useful excuse for a vampire hunter to have when trying to do some good old infiltrating. The three vampire lords, however, fully intend to capture and seduce you, possibly give your pretty neck a bite or two, but all of that does get a bit complicated when you are being such a tease and constantly asking them about their financial books. Will they succeed in the task of making you theirs, dear Y/N? And are they onto your little schemes?

[kp777]

By Edward Carver

Common Dreams

July 23, 2024

"Harris grasps the urgency and scale of the challenge," an expert said. "She'll advance the climate progress we've made at home and internationally."

Four environmental groups on Monday evening endorsed the presidential run of U.S. vice president and presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, whom many campaigners view as slightly stronger on climate issues than President Joe Biden.

The League of Conservation Voters Action Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Action Fund, the Sierra Club, and Clean Energy for America Action issued a statement of support for Harris and pledged to mobilize millions of their supporters behind her.

“Kamala Harris is a courageous advocate for the people and the planet," said Ben Jealous, Sierra Club's executive director.

"She has worked for decades to combat the climate crisis and protect our health and future," he added.

Manish Bapna, president of NRDC Action Fund, agreed that the vice president was well-equipped to step into the top role and deal with the climate crisis.

"Harris grasps the urgency and scale of the challenge," Bapna said. "She'll advance the climate progress we've made at home and internationally. She'll raise climate ambition to make sure we confront the climate crisis in a way that makes the country more inclusive, more economically competitive, and more energy secure."

The joint statement followed a wave of endorsements from leading Democrats in the day and a half after Biden dropped out of the race and backed Harris. Evergreen Action, a climate advocacy group, also endorsed Harris.

The Sunrise Movement thanked Biden for stepping aside, after pushing him to do so. The group hasn't endorsed Harris but has, on social media, touted Harris' earlier climate proposals and initiatives, encouraging her to be as bold as she was on the issue in 2019 while running for president. That year, as a senator from California, she co-sponsored a Green New Deal bill pushed by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), saying that climate change posed an "existential threat to our nation."

As a presidential candidate, Harris ran to the left of Biden on climate issues, calling for $10 trillion in climate investment, a carbon tax, and a ban on fracking and on new oil leases on federal lands. She even said that she would support eliminating the Senate filibuster rule in order to pass a Green New Deal.

And during a 2019 town hall on climate, Harris identified an underlying climate problem more squarely than many corporate Democrats are willing to do.

"On this issue, guys, as far as I'm concerned, it's not a question of debating the science," Harris said at the time. "It's a question of taking on powerful interests, taking on the polluters, understanding that they have a profit motive to pollute."

Yet that Harris candidacy, wedged awkwardly between corporate Democrats such as Biden and progressives such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), flopped and she dropped out of the race in December 2019.

As vice president, Harris cast the tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden, in his momentous letter on Sunday, called "the most significant climate legislation in the history of the world." She also represented the U.S. at the COP28 climate change summit in Dubai last year, speaking in strong terms about the need for action.

"The urgency of this moment is clear," she said in Dubai. "The clock is no longer just ticking, it is banging. And we must make up for lost time."

"Around the world, there are those who seek to slow or stop our progress, leaders who deny climate science, delay climate action, and spread misinformation," she added. "In the face of their resistance and in the context of this moment, we must do more."

Longtime Harris observers in California commend her environmental record there. As district attorney of San Francisco, she established one of the nation's first environmental justice departments. She later pushed environmental measures as state attorney general and U.S. senator representing California: electrifying school buses, replacing lead water pipes, and strengthening vehicle emissions standards, for example.

As attorney general, she sued oil companies including Chevron, BP, and ConocoPhillips over pollution issues and took legal action against the Obama administration over fracking. Later, in the town hall event, she she said was proud to be a "fighter" who "took on the Big Oil companies—great, powerful interests."

Bloomberg reported Sunday that Harris is "seen as [a] tougher oil industry opponent than Biden."

Though Harris no longer calls for a Green New Deal and has moderated her rhetoric as part of the Biden administration, she still offers a stark contrast to Republican nominee Donald Trump, whose administration rolled back over 100 climate policies from 2017 to 2021. The new Republican platform doesn't mention climate change and vows to "drill, baby, drill"—in all caps.

[thepro-lifemovement]

Arkansas will keep protecting unborn babies with disabilities after state House lawmakers rejected a bill Tuesday that would have created an exception in the state abortion ban for unborn babies who may have fatal conditions.

KUAR Public Radio reports the state House Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee voted against the discriminatory legislation, House Bill 1301 sponsored by state Rep. Nicole Clowney, D-Fayetteville.

Arkansas protects unborn babies by banning all elective abortions. Clowney’s bill would have amended state laws to make an exception for unborn babies who may have a “fetal abnormality incompatible with life.”

Among those testifying against the legislation were Cherisse Dean of the pro-life Family Council. Dean told lawmakers that babies in the womb deserve to be protected even if they have or may have a fatal condition.

“It does not say what it is and what it is not, and so that leaves it very unclear for a federal judge to interpret this language,” she said. “Unborn children should not be aborted because a doctor thinks that they may have a fetal abnormality.”

Killing unborn babies with disabilities or fatal conditions is discriminatory, and families faced with tragic news deserve better, too. Perinatal hospice programs, for example, provide life-affirming support to families of unborn babies and newborns with fatal conditions, often offering grief counseling, funeral planning assistance, ideas for making memories as a family, palliative care information and more to help families preparing for their child’s death.

As part of its ongoing efforts to protect life, the Arkansas House recently passed a bill to require companies to provide paid maternity leave to new mothers if they also offer to pay for employees’ abortions or abortion travel expenses. A second bill would allow parents to claim their unborn babies as dependents on their taxes.

Lawmakers also recently proposed a pro-life memorial at the Arkansas Capitol to commemorate the unborn babies whose lives were lost in abortion.

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Worth | Treasured

I was wondering if you would maybe do part 2? I was thinking it could maybe be set a couple of weeks after 'Worth', where Leon's still feeling insecure about his relationship with Gwaine and maybe also despises/is disgusted with himself for always reacting so 'extremely' whenever Gwaine touches him. Also, if you wanted, someone from Leon's past (one of the people who made him feel he was not extraordinary) could come and try and separate the two for whatever reason. I just think it would be interesting to see this because although Leon does love Gwaine, clearly he's been conditioned into believing and obeying what those people say. It would be hard for him to follow his heart, and Gwaine and their friends would have to help him see that he can control his own life and doesn't have to listen to those people. – IntenseDreamer1 :D

Read on Ao3 Part 1 Part 2

Warnings: self-deprecating language, self-esteem issues

Pairings: leon/gwaine

Word Count: 3187

The night closes in over the room, dark shadows swirling about the edges of the bed as Leon stares into the quiet. The candle on the nightstand has long since stopped smoldering, and yet he can't draw his eyes away from the spot where the last of the embers cast the smallest of shadows onto the wick. His body, long exhausted from the rough day of training, still tingles with the memory of the hits, and his tongue, taxed from the extended council session, lies near useless between his lips. All in all, this should be a night where he finds no trouble slipping off into sleep, ready to carry out his next day without fail.

And yet, here he lies, staring at the distant memory of a lit candle.

It had been…interesting, yes, that's the word. To see the others look at him in a certain way once he emerged into the light of the training field. Gwaine, for all his bluster, hadn't said or implied one thing about their new—arrangement? Relationship? Perhaps this was part of the problem; he had no idea what it was they were calling themselves now, if anything at all, and any uncertainty wound its way through his chest the same. Regardless, Gwaine had not been the one to act any differently, and so it had been Leon's fault and his fault alone that the others had noticed something was wrong.

He had not admitted it out loud, not sure he could withstand the mortification nor the taunting that was sure to follow, and instead had mumbled something about having an unexpected night that threw him off. He extended his apologies to Arthur, of course, who waved him off as though nothing he could do would truly upset him—a generous statement, he knows, and he has no intentions of testing its boundaries. Merlin had caught his eye once or twice, once with narrowed eyes that split into a huge grin, and the second with the familiar worried furrow between his brows and the silent are you alright?

He'd been cornered afterwards, as he knew he would be, as Merlin politely interrogated him as to how well Gwaine had done with 'cheering him up,' and what exactly awaited him if he so much as vaguely upset Leon in the future. He'd been flattered, of course; it was expected that the conversation would go the other way, what with how Gwaine was far and away Merlin's friend first and foremost as opposed to any knight of Camelot, but Merlin had insisted in a way that made his chest feel tight all over again. He'd stumbled his way through admitting that he was woefully inexperienced when it came to anything remotely considered romance, or courting, or…well, just about anything, and Merlin had shaken his head.

"I've had to listen to Gwaine mope and pine after you for too long," he'd said, ignoring Leon's undignified spluttering, "if he's not willing to be patient with you, then that's his loss."

He'd mumbled as much to Gwaine later when he'd returned, only for Gwaine to grin and dart close enough to press an unseen kiss to his lips.

"I've got enough patience to outlast the rest of Camelot," he'd murmured into his mouth, "don't you worry about that at all, alright?"

"I will try my best."

Then, of course, there came the meeting. There is a stark difference between the prying eyes of the knights and the watchful eyes of the Council. There are only so many places to hide, after all, in the large halls where voices carry and everyone's eyes strain to catch even the smallest uncertainty or weakness, hoping to use it to further their own gain. His station affords him limited protection, as does his role as First Knight supporting the King above his own ideas, but still. The red cape and armor make him a target in those rooms that it never does on the battlefield, and he is still unaccustomed to the way the nobles smirk and whisper.

It had been his fault, he knows, to let his guard drop so quickly outside the doors, to let himself hear them click shut and have his shoulders sag near immediately. It had been his fault that he'd seen Gwaine walking towards him with the other knights, ready for their next bout, and allowed the smile to curl up the corners of his mouth. It had been his fault that Gwaine had clapped him on the shoulder—a perfectly innocent gesture—and he'd let out the quietest of hums.

It had been his fault that he had been noticed and pulled aside.

"You're thinking too loud," comes Gwaine's voice, jolting him back to the present as a hand curls lightly around his hip, prompting another soft noise, "shh, what's the matter?"

"It is no trouble."

"That's a lie," he says, still speaking so gently, as his breath puffs across Leon's shoulder, "come on, you can tell me. I won't be upset—unless it's about my hair. Then I might be upset."

Despite himself, his mouth quirks up. "It's not about your hair."

"Oh. Then I should have no trouble hearing it." The sheets rustle as he shuffles closer, the heat from his chest pressing against Leon's back as his arm comes to drape comfortingly over his waist. "Tell me what it is that troubles you so."

"I…am struggling," he confesses, "and I do not think it is something I will cease to struggle with for a long time."

"That is troubling. What is it?"

In lieu of answering right away, Leon allows himself to glance down. Gwaine's hand splays protectively over his stomach, cupping him against the long line of his body, as though he were precious cargo. He hesitantly reaches to touch that hand, a rush of breath leaving him when Gwaine allows their fingers to lace together and a kiss presses against his shoulder. The very sound of it leaving his lips is enough for him to squeeze his eyes shut.

"Hey, now," Gwaine says, because of course he noticed, "what's all that for?"

"I should not be reacting like this. I should—I shouldn't be so weak."

"Leon," and now his voice is firmer, "there's nothing wrong with reacting to being touched. Absolutely nothing. You've said it yourself—I've lost count of how many times now, this isn't something you're familiar with. You don't need to be ashamed—"

"I do. I am the First Knight of Camelot, I should not be some—some—some blushing maiden almost fainting at the slightest touch of a man's hand against me. I shouldn't be failing to keep my composure if you so much as brush against me when we walk, I shouldn't be trying to hold it together when you've done almost nothing to me, I—"

He's rolled onto his back with a firm hand and suddenly Gwaine is looming over him, his mouth tight with worry and his eyes burning against Leon's gaze. "Who the hell is filling your head with that nonsense?"

"It's not nonsense—"

"It is," he interrupts sternly, not letting him roll away, "you're not weak, Leon. You're not. You're—I'm trying hard not to flatter myself right now, alright? You're not reacting like this to me and the touch because you're some weak-willed person that doesn't know how to control themselves, do you hear me? You're experiencing something new. Is it not expected for that to be a little, I don't know, new?"

"But how can I justify touch being new to me? It's not as though I've never been touched before!"

"When was the last time someone touched you as I do?"

That shocks the words out of his mouth. He opens and closes his lips a few times, soundless. Gwaine's expression softens the barest amount and he leans down, propping himself up on an elbow.

"It's been a while," he settles on eventually, and Gwaine hums.

"When was the last time you trusted someone enough to let them do this?" Fingers skate lightly over his collarbone and he bites his lip to stifle the noise that longs to escape. "Or let them into your bed for any considerable amount of time?"

"I don't…believe it's ever happened before?"

Something terribly sad flickers across Gwaine's face before he pushes it away. "Then how can you be blamed for not knowing how to 'deal with it,' as you've put it? Perhaps not in so many words, but in spirit, surely?"

"I—"

"Who was it," he interrupts, gaze hardening again, "who told you that?"

He sighs, daring to turn his head so his nose brushes Gwaine's arm. His silent plea is answered as Gwaine lowers himself, their chests pressing together. "It was after the Council meeting. I made the mistake of allowing myself to…react to seeing you in the halls and one of the nobles—"

"Which one?"

"Gwaine…"

"You barely reacted to me aside from smiling like people do when they see someone they care about. If someone's getting on your case about you smiling—"

"I did more than just smile."

"Did you?"

"I…made a noise."

Gwaine frowns. "Did you? I didn't hear you make a noise."

"You didn't?"

"No. What noise did you make?"

He splutters, heat rushing to his face. "What, do you expect me to recreate it?"

"Perhaps. How am I to know how to react if I don't know what noise you made?"

"Gwaine—" fingertips skate over his collarbone again and a light whimper escapes before he can stop it— "Gwaine!"

"Is that the noise?"

"No, that wasn't—stop," he pleads, catching the wandering hand before it can prompt any more embarrassing noises, "I don't—I think I hummed under my breath, alright?"

Gwaine stops, of course, bringing their clasped hands up to brush a kiss against his knuckles, concern still written plainly across his features. "So you made a noise that I couldn't even hear, in response to a touch that isn't unexpected among the knights, and after a long Council meeting where you were bound to be tired and ready to do something else, and some absolute arse of a noble—"

"Gwaine—"

"You don't get to tell me he isn't an arse when he's trying to make you feel bad about 'reacting' to a simple touch, as any man would, when you are tired and in need of relief."

"I am First Knight, it's unbecoming—"

"You are a man first and a knight second." Another kiss brushes across his knuckles. "You are just as deserving of gentle attention and soft touches as any other person. And yes, this includes after long Council meetings with absolute pigs that—"

"You can't talk about them like that," but his protest is weak even to his ears. Gwaine doesn't even acknowledge it.

"—think they can tell you what you can and can't do—Leon, look at me." He does, surprised to see the furrow smoothing out ever so slightly. "Does it bother you how you react to being touched?"

"I—well—"

"Not because someone's told you it should, not for any reason other than your own," Gwaine says quickly, "does it bother you?"

Leon's quiet for a long moment. His hand twitches in Gwaine's and in answer to his unspoken plea, Gwaine lowers himself down, creating a bubble of intimacy just for the two of them, alone in the darkened room. Only there, with his face mostly hidden in the crook of his shoulder, does he allow himself to nod.

"Why does it bother you so?"

"How can I claim to—to be any sort of man, any sort of warrior, if I cannot hold myself together?"

"Do you shame the squires who cry when they're away from home for the first time?"

"What? No, why would I—"

"Do you scold the men who startle awake from nightmares after battles hardly won?"

"No, never."

"Do you deprive the others of good food, good drink, a warm body in their beds when the fighting is over?" He only shakes his head this time and Gwaine looks at him so softly he wishes he could look away. "You can't hold standards for yourself that you don't hold for other knights, Leon. You can allow yourself moments where you are just a man."

He can't help but scoff. "Is this the sort of man you want? The kind who can't control himself any more than a sniveling babe?"

Instead of growing angry at the harsh tone he uses for himself, as part of him expected, Gwaine's mouth turns up into a wicked smirk and he leans down to whisper in Leon's ear.

"You mean, do I want the sort of man whose body will tell me what he wants even when he's beyond words? The kind that will shiver and whimper in response to my touch, the kind to be so lovely that he cannot help telling me what he likes, even when he's blushing too hard to speak? That sort of man?"

If anyone else were to hear the absolutely mortifying noise that leaves his lips in response to that, he'd run them through.

"No," he continues, softening away from such brazen flirtation, "no, Leon, it doesn't bother me. You'd be the sort of man I want even if you never made a single noise, or if you made all the noise in the world."

He swallows, closing his eyes at the brush of Gwaine's hair against his neck. The hand holding his sets it carefully on his shoulder, leaving Gwaine's free arm to slip under him, wrapping about his waist once more to hold him close. A kiss brushes against the pulse jumping just below his ear and he whimpers anew.

"You don't need to be embarrassed about what happens here. You don't need to be upset at yourself for feeling. And if there's a noble foolish enough to shame you for being a man in my presence, well—"

"You still can't threaten them."

"—I'll just have to tell Merlin about it."

Leon tenses. The knights, the knights he can predict to some extent, and soothe to a greater one, but Merlin…

"I don't think he'd be so easily convinced, do you?"

"Gwaine, you can't tell Merlin."

"Why not?"

"Because he'd—I don't know exactly what he'd do, but I wouldn't—I don't think even Arthur would be able to stop him."

"No, Arthur'd join in. Legalize the whole thing, make it an official royal order."

"Gwaine."

"What? Just because I'm the one lucky enough to see you like this—" and those lips brush the shell of his ear, prompting another soft noise— "doesn't mean I'm the only one ready to fight for your right to be this way. Do you believe the others would agree with that shoddy excuse for a decent person? That Arthur would? That Merlin would?"

"…no."

Gwaine leans up to look at him, smoothing a bit of hair back from his face. "Then you needn't act as though this is a fight you have to go through alone. You're learning how to let yourself enjoy something new, I can think of no better use of your time. And if someone is idiotic enough—"

"You can stop threatening people on my behalf, now. I get the point."

"Do you?"

"Yes, I do."

He grins and leans down to kiss him, soft and sweet, pulling back just far enough to murmur: "then you won't mind if I spend a little while like this, hm?"

"L-like what?"

He's kissed again, more soundly, and has to stifle a gasp as Gwaine's hand begins to slide up and down his flank. The movement is barely more than that which it takes to calm a skittish horse, and yet his skin feels as though it's on fire and he can no more muffle himself than he could bring the words to tell Gwaine to stop. Gwaine doesn't seem to mind in the slightest, simply humming with every small cry he's able to coax from Leon's mouth as he kisses along the curve of his jaw.

"What—what are you doing?"

"I'm just petting you."

"Am I some—some hound you're trying to reward?"

A chuckle against the crook of his neck. "No, you're just my lover, who is feeling terribly insecure about how vocal he is, and I'm attempting to convey that it's nothing to be ashamed of."

The moment the word 'lover' leaves Gwaine's lips, Leon chokes, his eyes going wide. Gwaine must feel the way his muscles go stiff under him, leaning up to look at him with concern. "L-lover?"

"Is that not what we are?"

"I just—I didn't—"

"Shh," Gwaine murmurs when Leon splutters a moment longer, "you don't have to say anything. I realize we haven't talked about it, you don't have to think about it now—"

"No!" The force of the shout does nothing to combat the rising blush. "No, I…I would like to."

He's rewarded with the slow cut of a smile across Gwaine's face as he dips back down to kiss him. "Then relax, lover, you've had a long day. Let me tend to you."

"Are you sure?"

"More than." Gwaine's grip tightens suddenly and he's pulled upwards into a fierce embrace. "Think of it as encouragement."

"Encouragement?"

"Mm. I'm choosing to expend my energy here, reassuring you, and not hunting down someone else and making them see the error of their ways."

"Gwaine…"

"Hush, now. You need your rest."

"…I was going to say 'thank you.'"

Gwaine's smile softens, his weight bearing the both of them back onto the mattress proper as the moon's silvery light shines through the still-drawn curtains. A hand cups the side of his face, brushing along his cheekbone, and he lets himself smile back.

"Whenever you need reminding," Gwaine says gently, "tell me. It's no great trouble to soothe your worries."

"I know that now." As Gwaine leans over to kiss him, he stops him with a hand on his chest. "You won't actually tell Merlin about this, will you?"

"Not unless you give me reason to."

(Leon doesn't know that Gwaine doesn't have to. Merlin's seen the whole thing already and he's none too pleased about it. The knights are keeping it a secret until Arthur can publicly banish the noble anyway.)

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

Charles de Gaulle found the memory of D-Day so painful that he refused to participate in commemorations of the Normandy invasion during his 11 years as president of France. He did not invite heads of government to mark either the 20th anniversary in 1964 or the 25th in 1969. Old soldiers saluted; ambassadors laid wreaths.

President Dwight Eisenhower had tried to salve the French hurt in the statement he released for the 10th anniversary in 1954. The statement did not mention the United States or its armed forces. It praised by name three British commanders, three French, one Soviet—no Americans. It credited the victory to “the joint labors of cooperating nations,” and said “it depended for its success upon the skill, determination and self-sacrifice of men from several lands.” You might want to read it as a prophylactic antidote to the boast and bombast likely to fill the air today.

The experience of liberation was a complex thing for almost every country that experienced it from 1943 to 1945, but perhaps nowhere more than France. In the American imagination of 1944, France exists as a throng of cheering, welcoming faces, as women kissing GIs, as a landscape through which Allied tanks and trucks roar on their way to Germany. Depending on our mood, we romanticize the Resistance or excoriate collaborators—seldom caring to remember how ambiguously collaboration and resistance often blended together, or how often collaborators and resisters were the same people at different phases of the war or even different times of the same day.

To be liberated, first you must be defeated.

Everything about these D-Day anniversaries reminds the French of that humiliating sequence. When de Gaulle landed in Normandy for a one-day visit on June 14, he traveled back-and-forth across the English Channel in a British warship. De Gaulle’s ability to establish a provisional government depended on the permission of U.S. and British authorities—and so, ultimately, would the even more fraught question whether France would be accepted again as a major ally.

For four years, Vichy France had supplied and aided Germany. Vichy planes had bombed Gibraltar in 1940; Vichy tax collectors had extracted resources to pay the German occupiers. When Italy changed sides in 1943, it was treated as a liberated nation—but it was not accepted as a co-belligerent. France’s post-D-Day status utterly depended on British and American goodwill. For a man like de Gaulle, that dependency rankled.

De Gaulle’s famous speech of August 25, 1944, after the liberation of Paris, starkly reveals the fictions that would restore French pride.

“Paris! Paris outraged! Paris broken! Paris martyred! But Paris liberated! Liberated by itself, liberated by its people with the help of the French armies, with the support and the help of all France, of the France that fights, of the only France, of the real France, of the eternal France! … It will not even be enough that we have, with the help of our dear and admirable Allies, chased him from our home for us to consider ourselves satisfied after what has happened. We want to enter his territory as is fitting, as victors.”

France did enter Germany as a victor. French armies, supplied by the United States, subordinate to U.S. command, were stood up in 1944–45. France was allotted an occupation zone in Germany and awarded a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. (Italy was not even invited to join the United Nations until 1955.) Allied officialdom agreed to believe de Gaulle’s story that the France that fought Nazi Germany was the only real France.

But everyone understood the story was not true. The French military defeat in 1940 had torn apart social wounds dating back decades and longer. Conservative and Catholic France reinterpreted the battles of 1940 as a debacle only of the liberal and secular France that had held the upper hand since the founding of the Third Republic in 1871 and especially since the Dreyfus affair that began in 1894. When the reactionary French writer Charles Maurras was sentenced to life imprisonment for collaboration, he supposedly replied, “It’s the revenge of Dreyfus.”

Most French business leaders and civil servants collaborated out of opportunism or necessity. The Germans held hundreds of thousands of captured French soldiers as hostages for years after 1940. But more than a few leading French people, including many intellectuals and churchmen, collaborated out of a species of conviction. A French cardinal led the recruitment of French volunteers to fight alongside the Germans in Russia in 1941. “How can I, in a moment so decisive, refuse to approve the common noble enterprise directed by Germany, dedicated to liberate Russia from the bonds that have held it for the last twenty-five years, suffocating its old human and Christian traditions, to free France, Europe, and the world from the most pernicious and most sanguinary monster that mankind has ever known, to raise the peoples above their narrow interests, and to establish among them a holy fraternity revived from the time of the Christian Middle Ages?” Cardinal Alfred Baudrillart wrote, in his endorsement of the Anti-Bolshevik Legion.

The loss of the war against Germany enabled such people to launch a much more congenial culture war at home, to purge France of “liberty, equality, and fraternity,” the slogan of 1789, and establish in its place “work, family, fatherland,” the slogan of Vichy. Since 1905, France had been defined as a secular state. The Catholic Church had been reduced to one sect among others: Protestant, Jewish, even Muslim. (In 1920, the French government had subsidized the building of a grand mosque in thanks for the First World War service of Muslim troops. The great military cemetery near Verdun has a special section for Muslim soldiers, their graves angled away from the others in order to face Mecca.)

Vichy put an end to all that. The defeat of France by Germany was ideologically reinterpreted as a victory of “deep France” over a shallow liberal metropolitan veneer. Subjugation was reinterpreted by Vichy ideologues as redemption. Enmity was shifted from the occupying Germans to the liberal commercial “Anglo-Saxons.” Vichy propagandists produced cartoons in which Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Popeye were depicted dropping bombs on France at the behest of Jewish masters.

Anti-Allied enmity was not difficult to stoke: Allied bombing before 1944 and Allied land forces after 1944 did more damage to French cities than the Germans had in the few weeks of combat in 1940. The port of Le Havre was bombed 132 times from 1940 to 1944. The final raids in September reduced the city center to rubble, killing 5,000, maiming and rendering homeless tens of thousands more. The modernist cityscape that replaced the former 18th- and 19th-century core remains an enduring monument to the price paid by the French people for their liberation.

Vichyite enthusiasm for anti-liberalism opened a strange fluidity in French politics during and after the war. The future leader of French socialism, François Mitterrand, began his political career on the far right of French politics and worked until 1943 as a civil servant in the Vichy government. As president after 1981, Mitterrand would raise minimum wages, cut the workweek to 39 hours, nationalize some financial institutions, and end the death penalty. He would even do what de Gaulle could never stomach: celebrate the D-Day anniversary.

It was Mitterrand who decided to invite Ronald Reagan to Normandy in 1984, where Reagan delivered one of the great speeches of his presidency. Yet Mitterrand, to the end of his career, remained friends with—and protected from prosecution for crimes against humanity—the Vichy police chief who deported tens of thousands of Jews to their death.

But the chief was not the only one protected, and Mitterrand was not the only protector. As the French journalist René Rémond quipped to Roger Cohen of The New York Times: “They all have something to hide.”

When Americans choose to remember this sad history, they do so from the privilege of an easier geography. As time has separated us from the Second World War, U.S. memories have become more triumphalist and self-aggrandizing. It is a remarkable thing to watch President Donald Trump’s preening and posing in the U.K. and France on this anniversary. France fell in 1940 in great part because the United States went AWOL from European peace and security after 1919. The U.S. was AWOL very much because of leaders who in their day espoused the same crass protectionism and isolationism—and even the same “America First” slogan—as Trump himself. . .

[househuntingscotland]

2 bedroom flat for sale on St Vincent Crescent, Finnieston, Glasgow

Asking price: £239,000

Sold price: £331,331

[weepinggothbagelfreak]

PJO/HOO characters as things my friends have said:

Percy: Get a hobby other than kidnapping my mom.

Annabeth: The only thing you’re fucking is stupid.

Leo: I smoke bitches and eat weed!

Leo: Hey ladies, I’m sometimes dangerous but I’m always toast!

Nico: this is a life or passing out situation!!!

Will: They Yassified Snoop Dogg?!?

Percy: I’ll show you Titanic, Get in the ocean.

Annabeth: I’ll be the one to beat up Gandhi

Piper: We girl boss our way into Buckingham palace

Nico: Gaslight, Gatekeep, Genocide!

Percy: Glacial rivers are sooo yesterday

Hazel: how bare you ditch!!?

Leo: Don’t be a whore…be the imposter among us.

Piper: Tax evaders hips don’t lie.

Jason: Bruh! They tried to ratio me because of you!

Will: Who needs Student Council when you have being gay?

Nico: Gnomeo and Juliet shouldn’t have had a happy ending, gotta stay true to the lore.

Frank: you know, if you think about it: Ball is Life

Leo: I will take all the loonies and toonies from your wallet and shove them up your ass

Frank: Feel the embrace of Justin Trudeau, Our Lord and Saviour.

Jason: you ever just drown with the homies?

Leo: Eat ass and kick names!!!…no wait.

Annabeth: I have integrated note taking application into my ass

Jason: you fucked yourself into this you have to fuck your self out

Octavian: *using voice changer effect* I am a tyrant and I except it!!!

Piper: I only gaslight in the pursuit of Justice💅

Jason: You look scared, like Bambi. Hopefully your mother doesn’t die.

Leo: Yum! This water tastes like cheating the economy!

Annabeth: The Olive Garden of Eden!

Percy: you know you got the most gottable knees!

Jason: it’s always gotta come back to nascar!

Jason: Fly like a bird…I ONLY FLY LIKE A G6!

Hazel: It’s after 9pm, all bets are off!

Percy: God I love peer pressure! It’s such a group activity!

Octavian: I have an addiction to murdering children

Leo: In the all new Ford F150, we put a giant wooden pole in the driver's seat so you can always drive with a stick up your ass.

Percy: I said it when I was drinking toilet water

Rachel: The drawing is not done, that’s why it’s not done.

Bonus:

Mr. D: Verbal Abuse is the answer!

[brandwhorestarscream]

Great, now I want to hear your takes on the other 'Cons as amnesiacs

Wish granted! :D

We'll just start at the top and go down the line:

- Megatron as an amnesiac is reverted back to before the decepticon movement was even conceived. Originally, the civilians and war frames all lived together when Megs was vv small, but very early into his life there was a call for segregation: all of the war frames were delegated to the southern half of the planet, and the civilians were delegated to the north. That was the beginning of the downward spiral of Cybertron.

The southern half was, for lack of a better term, like a third world country. It was rougher around the edges and not as privileged as the north, but it wasn't a bad place to live. It was full of culture, art, music, and the people there weren't wealthy but they had fuel and family and that was enough. Despite that, the northerners had a tendency to spit on them, disparage them, calling them savages and less-thans simply because they were "dogs of war". The majority of the energon mines were in the south, so they were exceptionally important. But things spiralled out of control with massive taxes and more and more oppressive laws. Millions of years passed and the south fell into complete disrepair, cut off from the government, wages at a record low, mecha starving or dying from injury or illness because there was no medical care. Eventually, with the extraction of the All Spark and the discovery that fully-functional adults could be factory made, there were restrictions placed on sparklings, and then they were banned all together. That was the final breaking point for the war frames--the council could call it whatever they wanted, but that's genocide! The civilians had no intentions of ever making more war frames, they were trying to drive them to extinction! It was a hellscape that could crush the spirit out of literally anyone

The amnesiac Megatron I'm imagining is reverted back to a time before the idea of rebellion was ever sparked in his mind. He's exceptionally quiet and introspective. He's used to living every day in an endless, droning cycle: wake up, work a 16 hour shift, drink whatever percentage of fuel he's earned that day, collapse into bed, and repeat. On earth, with all of his memories gone, he has no idea what to do with himself. All he's ever done, for countless years, is work. He has no hobbies, no friends, nothing to occupy his time with. And now, by god, he has all the time in the world.

There's no energon mines on this planet, there's no way for him to get home. He's honestly pretty lost and has no idea what to do with himself. After awhile he does start to come out of his shell, but it's slow going and he still doesn't say much. He's very socially awkward and doesn't know how to really talk to people, a very stark contrast to the hard-earned charisma of his present self. He's weirdly almost sweet, once he gets used to you, and treats everyone like an equal.

- Lugnut is next. He's still got a very loud, boisterous personality, but rather than a one-track Megatron mind, he's just a very noisy, excitable person in general. I hc that Lugnut was an empurata victim, with the one optic and the pincer-like claws? Fight me. He was also either mnemosurgeried or shadowplayed, but the process was interrupted halfway through. There was a decepticon raid on the facility he was being worked on at, and their saving him from having the process completed unfortunately scrambled his processor a bit. Having a delicate neurosurgery interrupted will do that. His screwy codes kinda imprinted on Megatron as his 'savior', aka why he's so obsessive and worships the ground he walks on.

He's never been to an organic planet before, never even been outside of his home city on Cybertron, so earth is a special treat. They don't have mechanimals where he's from, nor any crystal flora, so to be able to witness so many creatures is beyond incredible for him. He likes to imagine what these sorts of flora and fauna would look like back home, and if you think he doesn't pester Bulkhead into painting cybertronian versions of blue jays and squirrels, you're dead wrong

Despite their polar opposite personalities, he actually gets along well with Prowl. Go figure. It's the fellow nature-enthusiast. Granted, yeah, he gets too excited and 10 out of 10 times scares away the critters they're watching, but he's so genuinely enthusiastic It's hard to be mad

- Blitzwing is the one I toiled over the most, honestly. Cuz, before and even during the war, he was a single, unified person. He didn't become a triple changer until Blackarachnia put him under the knife, and that was millions of years after the cons had been exiled. So, this is a toughie

Icy, Hothead, and Random are all still there, first and foremost. Losing memories wouldn't cause them to just vanish. So now, Blitzwing has the added horror of his pre-experimentation self trying to shine through, but is being contrasted by three other people. All four of them are completely lost; they have no recollection of any war, autobots nor decepticons. Original Blitzwing has memories of his home on Cybertron, and it's like he suddenly just woke up to 3 other bots living in his head and taking over his body in sporadic bursts. Meanwhile Icy, Hothead, and Random have no memories of anything. It's like they've been factory reset to day 1

Needless to say, Blitzy is a mess. He feels like he's gone completely crazy, voices he doesn't know constantly ringing out in his head, taking control of his body and puppeting him. He's conscious in there even when the other faces take over, but he can't do anything but watch and listen and feel. He knows exactly what's going on at all times, but it's like he's stuck in the passenger seat. It's awful. Poor guy is plagued with insomnia and debilitating migraines, the type that make it feel like his helm is a nuclear reactor about to reach critical mass, and all he can do is lay completely still in total darkness as the worst pain he's ever felt stabs him in the processor over and over and over again.

He's honestly struggling a lot, mental health wise. Stranded on a planet he doesn't know with a bunch of strangers, having the worst identity crisis in the history of crises, 2 seconds away from a total psychotic breakdown. It's enough to give him... scary thoughts, honestly. Thoughts about drugging or hurting himself, just so he could finally have some peace and feel like a real person again. He needs a lot of help just functioning in his day to day, and should be watched closely. He's in Ratchet's medbay a lot (assuming he ends up like Starscream and is in autobot care), and the old doctor has seen a lot of fucked up shit in his day, but watching this poor kid absolutely decimated, sobbing brokenly and begging for sedation because he literally can't control his body and has been invaded and violated by 3 strangers, really makes his spark ache

[illarian-rambling]

For the Brown game I @'d you in

Bronze and Caramel?

BRONZE - How rich is the richest person in this world? How did they get rich?

Well, it's a three-way tie between Anastasia Sayovski Kasumi Karstar, and Undeta Idansib.

Anastasia Sayovski is the matriarch of the Republic's Sayovski family, the hereditary line of leaders who lead their High Court. While she passed the title of High Lady on to her daughter years ago, Anastasia functionally runs the RTS, the Republic Tax Service, on her own. Which essentially means she controls the flow of money to any part of the Republic government, including to her family's part. Suffice to say, she is a very wealthy woman.

Kasumi Karstar is a rising member of Unity's Merchant Council. At only twenty, he was the first merchant to invest in the runic-steam engine upon its invention. In a very short time, this made him openly the richest person on the continent of Iarl. Anastasia hides her wealth, so not many people know that this dowager mother is in competition with Kasumi the Rising Star.

Undeta Idansib, mother of Twenari Undetasib, is the most successful smuggler in the history of the Janazi isles. Using powerful magic to ensure her shipments' security and being open to trade with everyone from sirens to the Cloud People has left her moving more goods across the ocean than any legitimate merchant could dream of.

CARAMEL - Does every character have the same accent?

I think I answered this in an earlier post, but 100% no. In Illari terms, Izjik has a southern Halawema’ishi accent, Sepo has a Seluthenite accent, Twenari has a Cabu accent, Djek has a street kid Fayuki accent, Astra has a borderlands accent, Mashal has a Bouercan accent, and Ivander has an aristocratic Unitian accent. In Earth terms, Izjik has a Kiwi accent, Sepo has a vaguely undefined romance language accent, Twenari has a British accent, Djek has a New York accent, Astra has a Southern drawl, Mashal has an upper south accent (unaccented to my ears), and Ivander has a fruitier British accent.

Thanks for the ask!

[beeseverywhen]

I wish they'd stop pledging not to increase tax and start pledging to make tax fairer

Tories challenge Labour to join them in ruling out council tax reform, in what they call 'family home tax guarantee'

Good morning. The government raises more than £1 trillion in tax every year, and more than half of that money comes from just three sources: income tax, national insurance and VAT. The Conservatives and Labour have both promised not to raise the rates of any of those taxes (although, with VAT, Labour was initially reluctant to give a cast-iron pledge, implying Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, wanted, at least a bit, to keep her options open.)

But there are plenty of other taxes available to a chancellor, and it seems the Conservative party now plans to spend the remaining four weeks until polling day challenging Labour to rule out raising any of them. Today Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, has written an article for the Daily Telegraph in which he promises that his party won’t increase stamp duty, that it will continue to ensure main homes are exempt from capital gains tax, and that it won’t hold a council tax revaluation, or increase the number of council tax bands. The final promise is particular significant because the current council tax arrangements for England are egregiously unfair, and mainstream economists argue (eg here and here) the case for reform is overwhelming.

Hunt says: That is why today we are announcing the family home tax guarantee.

This guarantee is a commitment not to increase the number of council tax bands, undertake an expensive council tax revaluation, or cut council tax discounts. It is a commitment to maintain private residence relief, so that people’s main homes are protected from capital gains tax. And it is a commitment not to increase the rate or level of stamp duty. I am throwing down the gauntlet to Rachel Reeves and Sir Keir Starmer to join us in this pledge. This isn’t party political point-scoring. I actually want to see the Labour party say they will put families first and higher taxes second.

When politicians declare they are not engaged in “party political point-scoring”, that’s often a clear sign that are and Hunt’s article suggests that the Tories have decided that tax is the strongest card they’ve got to play in the campaign. Normally parties are reluctant to rule out too many tax increases in advance of an election because they want to retain room for manoeuvre if economic circumstances get tricky. But if a party is expecting to lose, it feels less constrained when it comes to making promises.

So far Hunt does not seem to have succeeded in tempting Labour to play his game. Last night a party spokersperson just said:

We will not be raising taxes on working people … These are more desperate claims from Rishi Sunak who lied to the British people before and is lying to them again.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies is in despair at the honesty of the debate about taxation during the campaign. It says both main parties are refusing to be honest about the need for tax rises or deep spending cuts after polling day.

There's 0 rational to not reform council tax. In a 1 bed council flat I pay more than I would for a band H property in Wandsworth

Couple of pictures of properties that pay less council tax than me in my rented council flat. It's cool. I'm not bitter. This is fine

[aeoki]

Seven Bridges - Hate Control: Chapter 10

Location: Yumenosaki Student Council Room Characters: Mao & Hitsugi

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ< A week later. Yumenosaki, student council room. >

Mao: Alright! Anzu, you’ve made a full comeback, huh!

Hitsugi: Ehehe ♪ Aww, I didn’t do anything special though!

Mao: Yeah, no one’s talking about you right now. But still, it looks like you’re listed as “assistance”, so I guess you’re the one who helped Anzu?

If that’s true, then I gotta thank you. Well, it feels a bit strange for me to say that.

I went over the revised proposal for “Tanabata Fest” that was submitted yesterday very thoroughly to make sure there definitely wouldn’t be any issues cropping up.

But it was great! Now, that’s our Anzu! I was pretty worried seeing how all of the people involved were THIS close to seeing hell, though…♪

But despite “Tanabata Fest’s” usual bright and beautiful appearance on the outside…

You can get up on stage as many times as you like – as long as you’ve got the motivation for it. It’s a pretty physically taxing event, non the contrary.

It finally feels like the “Tanabata Fest” that we know. Maybe I should say it finally feels more like an Anzu-style event.

Hitsugi: Huh? So the “Tanabata Fest” proposal has been revised, huh? What’s it like now? I’m curious!

Mao: Wait, why does it sound like you don’t know anything about it?

Hitsugi: Ehe ☆

…Hmm~ By the looks of it, did my sister have something to do with this? She’s been moving about on her own a lot recently.

It’s fine though! Since I love my big sister!

Mao: ? Anyway, the proposal has been revised to a good standard, so to be frank, the first version of the proposal was so disappointing, it lowered everyone’s motivation levels. None of the preparations have even started at this point.

That’s also why it was possible to do a drastic move and reset the entire “Tanabata Fest”.

Honestly, there isn’t a lot of time before D-Day. I’ll mobilise the Student Council and ask some of my acquaintances for help as best I can.

But I don’t know if we can finish everything on time. So let’s not waste any more time and get to work.

The proposal looks good to me so I’ll accept it once more. Of course, I’ll be increasing the budget as per the contents of the proposal.

Naturally, it’ll be impossible to drop a lot of funding out of thin air like the previous Student Council, but it should cover most things.

Hitsugi: Yaaay! Money! Having no money is the same as being headless! Thanks a bunch!

Thank goodness~ For a second, I thought I had to ask “Uncle” for a favour there.

Mao: ? Do you have an acquaintance that’s rich or something?

Well, I don’t mean to criticise you but it’s sheer stupidity to pay for the event out of your own pocket.

I think a “producer” should allocate an appropriate budget using the proper methods before using it effectively. Wait, I feel like I’ve been kinda preachy lately. That’s arrogant of me.

Hitsugi: No, it’s alright~ Anzu-senpai knows her stuff but I still don’t know anything, so feel free to point out all the parts I need to improve on.

Mao: Right. That’s my job. Well, it looks like Anzu’s back to her usual self so I don’t think there’ll be any time for me to jump in and do that, though.

Anyway, Anzu, you sure had a change of heart out of the blue like that. It felt like you hit rock bottom the other day, but even your facial expressions have more life in them now.

Did something good happen?

Oh? There’s an idol you want to produce? Who is it? I think I might be a little jealous~♪

It’s alright though. You’re not our only “producer” anymore so it makes sense, but it does make me a bit sad.

Oh, I said we don’t have much time, but look at me chattering away like this. I’ll start contacting the right people on “Hallhands” at once.

I’ve also got to let ES know… Who would be the best person to call that can sort it out easily? Guess it would be Tenshouin-senpai, huh. Or maybe Sakuma-senpai?

…Oh, I remembered since I mentioned Sakuma but Kurone, don’t do suspicious things around the school.

Hitsugi: What? Me? What do you mean?

Mao: Ritsu told me to ask you when I had the chance, but I heard you did something to the coffin Sakuma-senpai buried on school grounds?

Well, under normal circumstances, I should be scolding Sakuma-senpai for burying weird things, but he’s helped me a lot in the past, so I feel like I can’t do that.

Hitsugi: Coffin… Ohh~ that one.

I couldn’t get close to it because the security for the secret underground archive is really tight, so I was looking for the coffin that was rumoured to have a similar sealed record.

It did occur to me that it might have just been a rumour, though.

And on top of that, it was buried really deeply in the ground. It was enough to be buried alive by the debris if I wasn’t careful, but it seemed nothing important was in there.

Well, it wasn’t a very fruitful endeavour and wasn’t worth all that work. There’s nothing else I could say.

Mao: I don’t really get it but Yumenosaki has some pretty questionable parts about it, so I don’t think you should get too deeply involved. Don’t blame me if you get burned.

…Just kidding. Guess it’s time for me to act like Hasumi-senpai, huh.

Hitsugi: Oh, please don’t misunderstand! I’m not investigating it just because just for kicks~!

It’s something super, super important! I’m doing it so that I can live as myself! It’s something I must do!

Mao: ………?

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