#and then there is molly/king and people are just

[dent-de-leon]

Gently cradling this one mention of Mollymauk from the cookbook in my hands,, colorful little peacock tiefling my beloved. Also I like the Dust of Deliciousness “recipe”—

[junebugdunes]

she's just upset because somehow Giovanni got all 4 railroads

[hetagrammy]

Postwar reunions. Fighting for a just cause is one thing, killing your brother for it is a whole other, and Lovino is left wondering if it'll change her opinion of him (spoiler: it won't)

I'm blaming @the-phoenix-heart and the Ithaca Saga for this

[captainsparklefingers]

Fully prepared to be disappointed tonight during the finale when, once again, Kingsley doesn't appear or get mentioned.

:( he didn't even get any new level art with the rest of the Nein. He doesn't even have a chibi pin like the rest of them.

Veth and Nott BOTH have one. Jester has TWO. Kingsley gets...what, nothing? Nothing. :(

[amelikos]

I love when they casually reveal that Spinel hasn't stopped tracking the main trio once in this arc.. retroactively makes some of the past lighthearted episodes of this arc have a worrying edge to it, because you just end up wondering how long he's been watching, or if he was already watching at that point etc.

He is also even apparently keeping an eye on the Brave Asagi being repaired. He followed Friede around without his knowledge a while ago too. He just knows everything, and could act but just doesn't strike until the time is right.

I wonder if he is the one orchestrating Liko being separated from Roy and Dot in HZ064. The preview mentions that she is separated from them. And next ep will be exactly fifty episodes after HZ014, which was also when Spinel lured Liko away from the RVT to steal her pendant. He used her kindness against her by sending a fake ad about that one spice Murdock wanted. He spied on their conversation in that episode and used that bit of dialogue against Liko because he knew she would be exactly the type to want to go get that spice because it would make Murdock happy. Maybe he is creating some kind of diversion to separate Liko from her friends in the next episode. It wouldn't be the first time he messed with people's phones or other devices.

[oldtvandcomics]

One quarter of the year 2023 gone. So far, I’ve read:

-) 3 nonfiction books (Handbook of Medieval Sexuality; By Your Side - The First 100 Years of Yuri Anime and Manga; Clothes Make the Man - Female Crossdressing in Medieval Europe)

-) 1 piece of classic literature (Roman de Silence)

-) 2 novels (Transistor; Consecrated Ground)

-) 0 novellas

-) 0 short story collections

-) 1 comic book (Dracula vs King Arthur)

[captainsparklefingers]

Oh man. I was gonna do this in the tags so that I didn't get started on somebody else's post, but I hit the tag limit and got more to say, so, I'm really sorry, OP. I got started on this and am now going off on a rant/diatribe/I'm not actually sure what (I'm fairly sure I repeat myself, I do that a lot). Imma stick it under a cut, at least.

(And man does it bug me when people doing the 'king is molly to the left' thing ignore lucien but that's another rant entirely.)

Molly is part of Kingsley. That does not mean that Kingsley is Molly. Lucien is part of Kingsley but that doesn't make Kingsley Lucien, either!

Molly and Lucien and Kingsley have the same soul. A soul that was broken and shattered and lived and died and lived again, who's deaths were particularly traumatic and violent. A soul that denied the other part of it so much, even when things slipped through the cracks to make it clear that no, they are the same soul with different lived experiences.

These two parts of a soul FINALLY accept that they are the same and part of one another, and take the other's hand, and Kingsley is the result. Molly and Lucien are Kingsley, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Kingsley is Molly or Lucien.

(I always thought of it as sort of being like fusion in Steven Universe, particularly Garnet. Ruby and Sapphire together are Garnet, but Garnet is her own person with her own life that is both separate and connected to Ruby and Sapphire. But that's an aside again.)

Kingsley is a whole soul with a new chance at life. A chance to take chances, make new mistakes, get messy, and most importantly, to never go through what Lucien and Mollymauk did.

Kingsley woke surrounded by friends who already loved him and made sure he never felt empty. He didn't have to claw out of a shallow grave, afraid of the past he couldn't remember so much that he threw himself into being as disconnected from it as possible. He didn't have to grow up in Shady Creek Run, join the Orders, leave the Orders, be betrayed and broken and brought back and in the end be a tool for others to use.

(yes Lucien turned the tables on the Somnovem, but I firmly believe that he was their tool being used for an end before he did.)

Anyway, does that think I mean that Kingsley doesn't remember things from Molly and Lucien? No. There was an insight check, after King said he didn't remember, and I'm like 90% sure it was never followed up on (a lot was happening, it's understandable), so yeah, there's enough ambiguity there for interpretation. I've said it a lot (I wrote a goddamn fic about it when we had exactly one episode with King to go off of), but I think the memories are there, Molly and Lucien's both. And when King is ready, when he's sure he's not going to be consumed by these past lives he doesn't want to live, when he knows he'll still be Kingsley, he'll take them back.

That was how I interpreted the woman in red, telling him in his dream how to keep secrets. She (the moonweaver, because of course it was) was telling him how to keep the others locked up while he became himself. Does it mean it's perfect? No. King got feelings from the Nein, he says and does things that are very much like Lucien and Molly, that greater restoration definitely did SOMETHING to King...I mean. You try suddenly having two lives shoved into your head!

Anyway. I don't think he'll deny Molly or Lucien, because that's what they both did, and he's not going to make old mistakes. I don't think he'll run from them (it's why he views them as parents right now, I think, it's an easy way for somebody who's existed for exactly six months to figure out how to handle his soul's past two lives), but even when he accepts them, he won't be them. Will King be similar to Molly and Lucien in ways? Absolutely! Same soul, remember? Some things don't go away (like feelings for friends when you have nothing, or instinctively knowing how to use your bloodhunter powers, or being able to juggle). But that doesn't mean Kingsley is either of them.

There's a lot in campaign 2 about names and identity and memory. We have Fjord, who spends a good chunk of the campaign pretending to be somebody else because he doesn't feel like his identity is enough, like he's enough. We met Veth as Nott, who basically kept those two names and lives separate until she was a halfling again. Because that was how she dealt with her trauma and with what was done to her and the person she'd become when she became a goblin. It's fairly minor, but Jester wasn't born Jester, she was born Genevieve. That's the name her mother gave her, but it didn't fit her, it wasn't right, so she took a virtue name, something that DID fit.

(side note: one could consider Kingsley to be a virtue name, since it comes from the feeling of kingliness that both parts of his soul had experienced and felt).

You have Yasha, the Orphan Maker, who has huge chunks of time she lost, who we got to see break her chains and get her wings back. She wasn't the Orphan Maker anymore, at the end.

And then you have Caleb. Caleb, who can and will never be Bren again, who is forever defined by his past actions. Who came so, SO far by the end of the campaign. He'd taken his old mentor down. He'd found acceptance and friendship again. He let his parents go.

And despite that, he never goes back to calling himself Bren. Even by campaign 3, he's still Caleb Widogast.

Obviously none of that is the same as Kingsley, who's whole situation is complicated and weird, but it's not like he's the only one who's got a past they're not going to live again. And a reminder, Molly's name wasn't one he chose. It was randomly given to him by Gustav, to make MT mean something, and it was one he said he wouldn't mind wearing for a while. Lucien basically discarded his name when he threw himself fully into being the Nonagon, and we know from our first meeting with Cree that he didn't like being called that.

Kingsley chose his own name for himself, based on something he felt was important to him.

Do I miss Molly, and am I sad that he died? Yeah. It felt like we lost some interesting story opportunities and the chance for Molly to grow as a character in the same way that the rest of the Nein did (because are any of them the exact same people we met in Trostenwald? No.). That doesn't mean I'm not happy we have Kingsley. He's a fascinating concept of a character, he's the best of his two past lives, he's a snarky shit who's a damn good sailor who cares about his crewmates and isn't above teasing his captain about his business name. He's the guy who almost made a bargain with Zehir because he 'likes boons', but who also recognizes that he needs to have a conversation about that at some point because 'what else [does he] have?'.

Molly and Lucien are part of Kingsley. But Kingsley Tealeaf is not either of them. He's his own person, trying to not make the same mistakes his soul did before.

Let him just be Kingsley .

One of my only campaign 2 pet peeves is when people try to pretend that Kingsley and Molly are the same person. Maybe Kingsley does turn out to be quite similar to Molly! But imo making him too similar to Molly kind of undermines what Taliesin was trying to do with Molly in the first place. 

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How to shatter the class solidarity of the ruling class

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me WEDNESDAY (Apr 11) at UCLA, then Chicago (Apr 17), Torino (Apr 21) Marin County (Apr 27), Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

Audre Lorde counsels us that "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House," while MLK said "the law cannot make a man love me, but it can restrain him from lynching me." Somewhere between replacing the system and using the system lies a pragmatic – if easily derailed – course.

Lorde is telling us that a rotten system can't be redeemed by using its own chosen reform mechanisms. King's telling us that unless we live, we can't fight – so anything within the system that makes it easier for your comrades to fight on can hasten the end of the system.

Take the problems of journalism. One old model of journalism funding involved wealthy newspaper families profiting handsomely by selling local appliance store owners the right to reach the townspeople who wanted to read sports-scores. These families expressed their patrician love of their town by peeling off some of those profits to pay reporters to sit through municipal council meetings or even travel overseas and get shot at.

In retrospect, this wasn't ever going to be a stable arrangement. It relied on both the inconstant generosity of newspaper barons and the absence of a superior way to show washing-machine ads to people who might want to buy washing machines. Neither of these were good long-term bets. Not only were newspaper barons easily distracted from their sense of patrician duty (especially when their own power was called into question), but there were lots of better ways to connect buyers and sellers lurking in potentia.

All of this was grossly exacerbated by tech monopolies. Tech barons aren't smarter or more evil than newspaper barons, but they have better tools, and so now they take 51 cents out of every ad dollar and 30 cents out of ever subscriber dollar and they refuse to deliver the news to users who explicitly requested it, unless the news company pays them a bribe to "boost" their posts:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech

The news is important, and people sign up to make, digest, and discuss the news for many non-economic reasons, which means that the news continues to struggle along, despite all the economic impediments and the vulture capitalists and tech monopolists who fight one another for which one will get to take the biggest bite out of the press. We've got outstanding nonprofit news outlets like Propublica, journalist-owned outlets like 404 Media, and crowdfunded reporters like Molly White (and winner-take-all outlets like the New York Times).

But as Hamilton Nolan points out, "that pot of money…is only large enough to produce a small fraction of the journalism that was being produced in past generations":

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/what-will-replace-advertising-revenue

For Nolan, "public funding of journalism is the only way to fix this…If we accept that journalism is not just a business or a form of entertainment but a public good, then funding it with public money makes perfect sense":

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/public-funding-of-journalism-is-the

Having grown up in Canada – under the CBC – and then lived for a quarter of my life in the UK – under the BBC – I am very enthusiastic about Nolan's solution. There are obvious problems with publicly funded journalism, like the politicization of news coverage:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/jan/24/panel-approving-richard-sharp-as-bbc-chair-included-tory-party-donor

And the transformation of the funding into a cheap political football:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poilievre-defund-cbc-change-law-1.6810434

But the worst version of those problems is still better than the best version of the private-equity-funded model of news production.

But Nolan notes the emergence of a new form of hedge fund news, one that is awfully promising, and also terribly fraught: Hunterbrook Media, an investigative news outlet owned by short-sellers who pay journalists to research and publish damning reports on companies they hold a short position on:

https://hntrbrk.com/

For those of you who are blissfully distant from the machinations of the financial markets, "short selling" is a wager that a company's stock price will go down. A gambler who takes a short position on a company's stock can make a lot of money if the company stumbles or fails altogether (but if the company does well, the short can suffer literally unlimited losses).

Shorts have historically paid analysts to dig into companies and uncover the sins hidden on their balance-sheets, but as Matt Levine points out, journalists work for a fraction of the price of analysts and are at least as good at uncovering dirt as MBAs are:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-04-02/a-hedge-fund-that-s-also-a-newspaper

What's more, shorts who discover dirt on a company still need to convince journalists to publicize their findings and trigger the sell-off that makes their short position pay off. Shorts who own a muckraking journalistic operation can skip this step: they are the journalists.

There's a way in which this is sheer genius. Well-funded shorts who don't care about the news per se can still be motivated into funding freely available, high-quality investigative journalism about corporate malfeasance (notoriously, one of the least attractive forms of journalism for advertisers). They can pay journalists top dollar – even bid against each other for the most talented journalists – and supply them with all the tools they need to ply their trade. A short won't ever try the kind of bullshit the owners of Vice pulled, paying themselves millions while their journalists lose access to Lexisnexis or the PACER database:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/24/anti-posse/#when-you-absolutely-positively-dont-give-a-solitary-single-fuck

The shorts whose journalists are best equipped stand to make the most money. What's not to like?

Well, the issue here is whether the ruling class's sense of solidarity is stronger than its greed. The wealthy have historically oscillated between real solidarity (think of the ultrawealthy lobbying to support bipartisan votes for tax cuts and bailouts) and "war of all against all" (as when wealthy colonizers dragged their countries into WWI after the supply of countries to steal ran out).

After all, the reason companies engage in the scams that shorts reveal is that they are profitable. "Behind every great fortune is a great crime," and that's just great. You don't win the game when you get into heaven, you win it when you get into the Forbes Rich List.

Take monopolies: investors like the upside of backing an upstart company that gobbles up some staid industry's margins – Amazon vs publishing, say, or Uber vs taxis. But while there's a lot of upside in that move, there's also a lot of risk: most companies that set out to "disrupt" an industry sink, taking their investors' capital down with them.

Contrast that with monopolies: backing a company that merges with its rivals and buys every small company that might someday grow large is a sure thing. Shriven of "wasteful competition," a company can lower quality, raise prices, capture its regulators, screw its workers and suppliers and laugh all the way to Davos. A big enough company can ignore the complaints of those workers, customers and regulators. They're not just too big to fail. They're not just too big to jail. They're too big to care:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi

Would-be monopolists are stuck in a high-stakes Prisoner's Dilemma. If they cooperate, they can screw over everyone else and get unimaginably rich. But if one party defects, they can raid the monopolist's margins, short its stock, and snitch to its regulators.

It's true that there's a clear incentive for hedge-fund managers to fund investigative journalism into other hedge-fund managers' portfolio companies. But it would be even more profitable for both of those hedgies to join forces and collude to screw the rest of us over. So long as they mistrust each other, we might see some benefit from that adversarial relationship. But the point of the 0.1% is that there aren't very many of them. The Aspen Institute can rent a hall that will hold an appreciable fraction of that crowd. They buy their private jets and bespoke suits and powdered rhino horn from the same exclusive sellers. Their kids go to the same elite schools. They know each other, and they have every opportunity to get drunk together at a charity ball or a society wedding and cook up a plan to join forces.

This is the problem at the core of "mechanism design" grounded in "rational self-interest." If you try to create a system where people do the right thing because they're selfish assholes, you normalize being a selfish asshole. Eventually, the selfish assholes form a cozy little League of Selfish Assholes and turn on the rest of us.

Appeals to morality don't work on unethical people, but appeals to immorality crowds out ethics. Take the ancient split between "free software" (software that is designed to maximize the freedom of the people who use it) and "open source software" (identical to free software, but promoted as a better way to make robust code through transparency and peer review).

Over the years, open source – an appeal to your own selfish need for better code – triumphed over free software, and its appeal to the ethics of a world of "software freedom." But it turns out that while the difference between "open" and "free" was once mere semantics, it's fully possible to decouple the two. Today, we have lots of "open source": you can see the code that Google, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook uses, and even contribute your labor to it for free. But you can't actually decide how the software you write works, because it all takes a loop through Google, Microsoft, Apple or Facebook's servers, and only those trillion-dollar tech monopolists have the software freedom to determine how those servers work:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/04/which-side-are-you-on/#tivoization-and-beyond

That's ruling class solidarity. The Big Tech firms have hidden a myriad of sins beneath their bafflegab and balance-sheets. These (as yet) undiscovered scams constitute a "bezzle," which JK Galbraith defined as "the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it."

The purpose of Hunterbrook is to discover and destroy bezzles, hastening the moment of realization that the wealth we all feel in a world of seemingly orderly technology is really an illusion. Hunterbrook certainly has its pick of bezzles to choose from, because we are living in a Golden Age of the Bezzle.

Which is why I titled my new novel The Bezzle. It's a tale of high-tech finance scams, starring my two-fisted forensic accountant Marty Hench, and in this volume, Hench is called upon to unwind a predatory prison-tech scam that victimizes the most vulnerable people in America – our army of prisoners – and their families:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

The scheme I fictionalize in The Bezzle is very real. Prison-tech monopolists like Securus and Viapath bribe prison officials to abolish calls, in-person visits, mail and parcels, then they supply prisoners with "free" tablets where they pay hugely inflated rates to receive mail, speak to their families, and access ebooks, distance education and other electronic media:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/02/captive-customers/#guillotine-watch

But a group of activists have cornered these high-tech predators, run them to ground and driven them to the brink of extinction, and they've done it using "the master's tools" – with appeals to regulators and the finance sector itself.

Writing for The Appeal, Dana Floberg and Morgan Duckett describe the campaign they waged with Worth Rises to bankrupt the prison-tech sector:

https://theappeal.org/securus-bankruptcy-prison-telecom-industry/

Here's the headline figure: Securus is $1.8 billion in debt, and it has eight months to find a financier or it will go bust. What's more, all the creditors it might reasonably approach have rejected its overtures, and its bonds have been downrated to junk status. It's a dead duck.

Even better is how this happened. Securus's debt problems started with its acquisition, a leveraged buyout by Platinum Equity, who borrowed heavily against the firm and then looted it with bogus "management fees" that meant that the debt continued to grow, despite Securus's $700m in annual revenue from America's prisoners. Platinum was just the last in a long line of PE companies that loaded up Securus with debt and merged it with its competitors, who were also mortgaged to make profits for other private equity funds.

For years, Securus and Platinum were able to service their debt and roll it over when it came due. But after Worth Rises got NYC to pass a law making jail calls free, creditors started to back away from Securus. It's one thing for Securus to charge $18 for a local call from a prison when it's splitting the money with the city jail system. But when that $18 needs to be paid by the city, they're going to demand much lower prices. To make things worse for Securus, prison reformers got similar laws passed in San Francisco and in Connecticut.

Securus tried to outrun its problems by gobbling up one of its major rivals, Icsolutions, but Worth Rises and its coalition convinced regulators at the FCC to block the merger. Securus abandoned the deal:

https://worthrises.org/blogpost/securusmerger

Then, Worth Rises targeted Platinum Equity, going after the pension funds and other investors whose capital Platinum used to keep Securus going. The massive negative press campaign led to eight-figure disinvestments:

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-09-05/la-fi-tom-gores-securus-prison-phone-mass-incarceration

Now, Securus's debt became "distressed," trading at $0.47 on the dollar. A brief, covid-fueled reprieve gave Securus a temporary lifeline, as prisoners' families were barred from in-person visits and had to pay Securus's rates to talk to their incarcerated loved ones. But after lockdown, Securus's troubles picked up right where they left off.

They targeted Platinum's founder, Tom Gores, who papered over his bloody fortune by styling himself as a philanthropist and sports-team owner. After a campaign by Worth Rises and Color of Change, Gores was kicked off the Los Angeles County Museum of Art board. When Gores tried to flip Securus to a SPAC – the same scam Trump pulled with Truth Social – the negative publicity about Securus's unsound morals and financials killed the deal:

https://twitter.com/WorthRises/status/1578034977828384769

Meanwhile, more states and cities are making prisoners' communications free, further worsening Securus's finances:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/14/minnesota-nice/#shitty-technology-adoption-curve

Congress passed the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act, giving the FCC the power to regulate the price of federal prisoners' communications. Securus's debt prices tumbled further:

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/s1541

Securus's debts were coming due: it owes $1.3b in 2024, and hundreds of millions more in 2025. Platinum has promised a $400m cash infusion, but that didn't sway S&P Global, a bond-rating agency that re-rated Securus's bonds as "CCC" (compare with "AAA"). Moody's concurred. Now, Securus is stuck selling junk-bonds:

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/s1541

The company's creditors have given Securus an eight-month runway to find a new lender before they force it into bankruptcy. The company's debt is trading at $0.08 on the dollar.

Securus's major competitor is Viapath (prison tech is a duopoly). Viapath is also debt-burdened and desperate, thanks to a parallel campaign by Worth Rises, and has tried all of Securus's tricks, and failed:

https://pestakeholder.org/news/american-securities-fails-to-sell-prison-telecom-company-viapath/

Viapath's debts are due next year, and if Securus tanks, no one in their right mind will give Viapath a dime. They're the walking dead.

Worth Rise's brilliant guerrilla warfare against prison-tech and its private equity backers are a master class in using the master's tools to dismantle the master's house. The finance sector isn't a friend of justice or working people, but sometimes it can be used tactically against financialization itself. To paraphrase MLK, "finance can't make a corporation love you, but it can stop a corporation from destroying you."

Yes, the ruling class finds solidarity at the most unexpected moments, and yes, it's easy for appeals to greed to institutionalize greediness. But whether it's funding unbezzling journalism through short selling, or freeing prisons by brandishing their cooked balance-sheets in the faces of bond-rating agencies, there's a lot of good we can do on the way to dismantling the system.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/08/money-talks/#bullshit-walks

Image: KMJ (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Boerse_01_KMJ.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[jamieontheroof]

Random things I noticed while playing What Remains Of Edith Finch

There was a poster of the cannery that Lewis worked at on the boat.

2. Edith Jr wears what appears to be an engagement on a necklace. Whether this is her ring or her mothers is not mentioned.

3. At the start of the game, Milton's missing posters are EVERYWHERE. There is even a giant pile of them in a nearby lake.

4. The dragon slide that crushed and killed Sven is still outside.

5. As you walk toward the house, the music gets louder.

6. The swing that Calvin flew off decades ago is still looped around the branch.

7. There was a spare peep hole in the garage that didn't have any names or dates on it.

8. At multiple points throughout the game you can hear a train in the background, despite the fact that the train tracks are clearly destroyed.

9. There are multiple pots throughout the Finch house that looks like they have eyes.

10. One of the books the Finches possessed was 'King in Yellow', a book known for making anyone who read it insane.

11. The house sounds alive, or like there are people constantly moving around it.

12. Walters bedroom is painted with both ocean and train designs. One of the paintings is the old house that Odin tried to bring to America.

13. There are drag marks on the ground of Walters bedroom (most likely made when his drawers were taken out of his room.)

14. The entrance to the tunnels is hidden by a book called 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, a classic sci-fi story about a sea monster.

15. Molly's room is filled entirely with animal books.

16. There is a jelly fish on Molly's bed (possible connection to the monster??).

17. Molly has a chalkboard in her bedroom where she is a princess in an underwater castle and Sven is about to get attacked by a sea monster (slightly resembling the dragon slide).

18. As shark!Molly starts falling down the cliff, she passes a road where headlights are briefly scene.

19. When the monster gets back to Molly's room, the window that cat!Molly jumped through is still open.

20. There are still Christmas decorations in Molly's room.

21. The curse is 500 years old. That is a lot of dead people.

22. In Odin's viewfinder, it states "His [Odin's] daughter, Edie, is already dreaming of new Finch house" showing that even though her own father died not even a week ago, Edie has already moved on.

23. The house is filled head to toe with books about death, including two that Odin wrote.

24. Sven's shrine does not have a log painting like the rest of the family. His portrait is painted on a simple canvas.

25. Edie has a number of strange tapes in her room including one titled "conspiracy now".

26. The toys from Gregory's final bath are still in the bathroom.

27. There is an old bottle of alcohol in the bathroom bin.

28. A lot of Sam's photos are based on Calvin (a swing, astronauts).

29. All of Milton's drawings are based on the death. (Molly = cat, Barbara = pumpkin)

30. There are cigarettes and gin on Sam's side of the room he shared with Calvin.

31. Calvin already had bruises, Band-Aids and a cast on his leg when he died.

32. Sam blames himself for challenging Calvin.

33. In the story, Calvin doesn't fall. He keeps flying.

34. Barbara's birthday cake is still in her room.

35. Barbara is holding crutches in her portrait.

36. There are totem-esc styles statues of both Calvin and Molly

37. Barbara's outfit is over the railing.

This is the same way the Hook-Man falls

38. "Performance of her life" can also mean that it is the performance she is known for.

39. There are spare portrait logs in the basement.

40. There is a fake window in the basement.

41. Edie's grave is finished despite her dying and then nobody else going to the house.

42. There is no grave for Milton.

43. Lewis' grave has a crown on it.

44. There are times wear it seems like you can hear sobbing (this one may just be me).

45. There is a box of Kay's old stuff in Sam's bedroom.

46. Odin has a park named after him.

47. This isn't a fact but I think this may be one of the funniest photos of the game (LIKE SIR? YOUR DAUGHTER IS SOBBING!).

48. Both Calvin and Dawn are on Sam's shrine.

49. Gus has a skateboard over his name.

50. Gregory has the soap bottle from his final bath in his shrine.

51. The music cuts out when Gregory isn't moving.

52. Same also blames himself for Gregory.

53. Gus never met his step mother.

54. Gus was crushed by the (totem) statues of his deceased relatives.

55. Dawn's light switch is the only one on

56. Most of the rules are about past deaths. (No playing outside without permission : Calvin, No answering door for strangers : Barbara, No messes after dark : Molly (???)).

57. Milton's garden has a castle (reference to the Unfinished Swan)

58. There is a small Sanjay shrine in the classroom

59. Edith JR did an assignment on her family history.

60. Lewis drew on his desk.

61. There is no death date for Milton on his peephole.

62. Edith JR wrote Milton's death date as 2003 (the year he disappeared).

63. The door from the flip book is in Milton's room.

64. Lewis' dream Palace is decorated with fish.

65. The gnomes scattered around the house are outside the original house in Edie's story.

66. The credits roll in reverse order.

AND THAT'S IT!! I had a few others I thought didn't need to go in.

[toorumlk]

Hi I'm so freaking obsessed with your twitter.

Also what's your favorite Romione moment in the books and why?

ohohoho thank you, friend, i’m quite proud of some of the stuff i’ve posted on there B)

and as for my favourite romione moment in the books, when i read the question i first blanked out for a couple minutes, thinking of a bunch of smaller, sillier scenes. but then i remembered that i do have a favourite and it’s from chapter 11 of DH, when remus visited the trio at grimmauld place and filled them in on he goings on of the war -including the implementation of the muggle-born registry. ron’s response upon hearing this (after his immediate outrage) was

and it’s not just the hand holding and the “‘you won’t have a choice’ said Ron fiercely” that played out so vividly in my head like this:

but this scene demonstrates so perfectly the political weight of this pairing (muggleborn/blood traitor) which i think is the immovable narrative foundation of romione. all of their silly moments and idiosyncrasies aside, there is genuine narrative purpose behind this love. ron has always had an astute understanding of the blood supremacist politics of the wizarding world (need i remind that he was ready to curse shitco at the ripe age of 12 for calling hermione the in-universe slur) and just how wrong it is. ron is a pure-blood wizard and by design has so much privilege in this society bc of it, but by virtue of having parents like arthur and molly, he’s grown up knowing the importance of fighting against blood supremacist ideology. always.

so, after hearing about the completely horrifying muggleborn registry ("People won't let this happen," said Ron. "It is happening, Ron," said Lupin.), he immediately turns to his muggleborn best friend and love of his life and says “i’m making you a family member, i’m going to use the protection my family-name has and use it to protect you from the awful injustice of our situation, no you won’t have a choice but to let me help you”

i remember having such a… visceral reaction while reading this scene like holy shit .. these kids, THESE KIDS!!!!! this is the bone-marrow-deep love that makes me feel insane. this dynamic of the blood traitor/muggleborn always there, from CoS all the way to the epilogue. We get to see that romione is the story’s pure blood/muggleborn that finally made it (rip jily and tedromeda :(). we see it in hermione keeping her muggle last name after they get married (oh my god these two actually got married) and we also see it in the hyphenated Granger-Weasley (granger being first!) in their kids’ last names (oh my gof these two had TWO kids). they are a true symbol of change and progress in their world.

also this is one of those moments where i’m so glad that our only window to romiones relationship development is through harry’s narration because it so brilliantly shows the readers this blossoming love story instead of just telling us about it because harry obviously doesn’t have access to the inner thoughts of his two best friends, he can only witness them fall deeper in love. showing the audience acts of love is always more powerful and my god is this an act of showing your love to your beloved.

(and not to go on an unrelated tangent, but this is exactly why i could never ship my girl hermione w any DE or DE-adjacent character. no fucking way. not when the concept of a muggle-born registry exists in this universe, not when the antagonists in this story wish to eradicate people like her from their society. idk about the rest of y’all but im going to keep taking the narrative seriously bc the worldbuilding obviously has real world ties/implications and i like engaging with the canon. tangently to the tangent, i saw someone (a ron basher) on twitter say that ron, OUR RON FROM THE ABOVE EXCERPT, was “one bad day away from becoming a death eater” ohhhh ohhh i ought to beat you with sticks bc HUH? this is the same kid who said he would’ve boarded the train back to kings cross if he got sorted to slytherin, the house notorious for birthing DEs, at the tender age of 11)

anyways, all this to say is that romione is incredibly, realistically, materially romantic and i love them and i love their love <3

[bearbunnycheetah]

🐰✨EPITHET ERASED: BEAR, BUNNY, AND CHEETAH✨🐻

Bear, Bunny, and Cheetah (BBaC for short!) is an AU where the Blyndeff sisters are taken in by Detective Percival King, and shenanigans ensue! This blog will be a mix of both writing, and an ask blog to ask anything about the characters! (The ask blog part will be mainly focused on Percy, Lorelai, and Molly!)

READ IT HERE!

✨🐆PERCIVAL KING🐆✨

✨🐰LORELAI BLYNDEFF🐰✨

✨🐻MOLLY BLYNDEFF🐻✨

OTHER CHARACTER AU CARDS!

RULES AND INFO:

-NO NSFW!

-This isn’t an RP blog, sorry!

-DNI PROSHIPPERS, HOMOPHOBES, TRANSPHOBES, BASIC DNI CRITERIA! -Please be patient as I work on this AU! I am one person and I’m doing my best!

-I will reblog/repost content of Palestine on my blog to support people in need, if you don’t like that then you can leave!

TAGS: #BBAC AU | EPITHET ERASED - Just the main tag for the blog incase you want to look for content/want to block it!

#BBAC AU | WRITING - For the main chapters and all the important stuff! #BBAC AU | AMA - To ask the characters about almost anything honestly! (NOT IN USE…. YET…)

#BBAC AU | OOC - For when I answer info/lore questions or post updates!

#BBAC AU | ART - When I post art of the characters! (Use this tag if you ever make fanart hehe…)

#BBAC AU | CARDS - For when I upload character info cards!

TBA…

MAIN BLOG: @cherry-cakee!

I’m very excited to finally be able to show people what I’ve been working on, see you soon!

[dent-de-leon]

rolling on the floor. what if in animated nein, we see Lucien as a young child, and his dear sister Aldreda, and his poor unfortunate older brother, and everything their parents did to them--

[omgwhatchloe]

REASONS WHY HAVING SOME RDR2 CHARACTERS AS YOUR PASSENGER IN YOUR CAR SUCKS:

Charles: Only talks to points out every single animal he sees. Other than that, it’s just silence unless you start the conversation or you’re Arthur. Oh but trust me, he wants the AUX. He’s just not gunna ask.

John: Either demands the AUX cord or just connects it anyway, then proceeds to be musically inconsiderate with what he plays. You despise this song with every ounce of your being? Too bad. This song reminds you of your lowest point? Suck it up buttercup. This was playing in the car when you crashed and killed the person in the passenger seat? Womp womp.

Dutch: Seems to think it’s his car. In fact, he feels completely free to change the music, turns up the heat as much as he pleases, winds the windows up and down, moves his seat constantly etc etc.

Reverend Swanson and Mary-Beth: Car sick. So very car sick. Your two options when driving them anywhere is the sound of heavy breathing with the sounds of the highway being blasted in through the open window, or bags rustling with the sound of puking and groaning. Trust me, they’d rather have walked as well.

Javier: Awful navigator. It’s fine when you know where you’re going, but absolutely awful when you need navigation. Half the time, you look over and he’s gone off the navigation app and is playing subway surfers and texting. The other half of the time, he’s misreading the directions then yelling at YOU. Not to mention it’s completely unsurprising to wonder why you’ve been driving for so long then find he’s clicked on the entire wrong destination without a second thought.

Sean: Acts like he’s never eaten before in his life as soon as he gets into the car. Sees a Wendy’s? He’s suddenly starving. Burger King? He hasn’t eaten in three days. KFC? He’ll pay you back, he swears! In fact, the man has absolutely no problem being late for anything if you stop for food. You could be on the way to Davey’s funeral, already running late and suddenly pull into the Krispy Kreme carpark and you would not hear a single protest from him.

Micah: Yaps a whole lot of waffle about how he’s all this n all that to the point you don’t even know what he’s saying anymore and neither does he. Also enjoys flipping random people off and yelling shit out of the window. Expect to be chased by an angry driver for at least 12 miles.

Bill: Eats and then just throws his trash on the floor without a single second thought. If you ask him to pick it up, he will, but not without angrily grumbling and snatching it up. Is in a bad mood for about 2 minutes before he realises he wants to yap so does.

Karen, Uncle, Abigail and Sean: Distracts the driver. Whether it’s with yapping or loud videos or drinking or messing with the music volume, they somehow keep it up from the start of the drive right to the end.

Hosea: Puts his feet up and puts his seat back like he’s in bed. Just won’t sit normally. Will give you a ‘look’ when you ask him to put them down.

Lenny: Makes things awkward, because the first thing he does is comment on the dirtiness of your car then looks extremely shocked and uncomfortable at himself for saying that for about 7 seconds before pulling out his phone and facetiming Sean for the whole drive and giving you the same looks Hosea does when you try to speak to him. When not on the phone, he tends to respond with shrugs and “Okay then,” while folding him arms and staring out of the window. Seems to be in an awful mood until he’s out of the car. He hates car rides if it’s not with his favourite people.

Molly: Acts like you can’t drive. Struggling to see what’s right in front of you? Molly’s got your back! Seriously, she will yell at you to stop at the red light you had already seen 7 seconds ago and started to slow for. Old woman crossing (while you’re already stopped)? She will yell at you not to go so loud you debate kicking her out and making her get her own car, since she knows so much.

Tilly and Strauss: Tries to get you to speed. It’s like they’ve never heard of laws before, and will insist you ‘go faster’ even though your way is blocked by other cars. It’s painfully obvious they both can’t drive and have never had to pay for gas money.

Miss Grimshaw: Absolutely disgusted by your car and wants to make that very clear. It wouldn’t be surprising if halfway through, she started to clean it herself.

Jack: Really really really wants to press that horn. You’d find it cute at first, but so goddamn annoying when your car starts honking in the middle of a busy crossing. It’s like a constant slap-fight except you’re pushing his hands away every-time they come for the horn.

Arthur: Constantly asking to pull over. He’ll casually say “stop here” as if you’re a taxi, not to mention you’re in the middle of nowhere on the highway and you really don’t understand what a stranger mission means. Commonly, you have to explain things like how you’re already an hour late and you literally do not have the room to drive that family of five that’s broken down anywhere, nor can you stop at an empty warehouse and potentially get arrested for trespassing because he wants to explore.

Kieran: Terrified when you go slightly over the speed limit. He acts like he’s in an F1 race with no seatbelt being hung out of the window.

[atarathegreat]

I absolutely loved your Tokyo Revengers sibling hcs! Are you planning on a part 2 soon? 👀

When is a better time than now?

Draken

He can't stand not sleeping in the same room as you

Can you blame him? It was mostly him that raised you!

Ken would literally kill you if you ever thought about working at the brothel, you're too pure for that!

Likes taking you to Toman meetings

Threatens anyone who looks at you in any sort of way

For sure has a whole photo album on his phone of nothing but pictures of you, baby to recent

Is the only person allowed to give you rides anywhere

Always says he loves you before leaving, even if you're mad at him, because what if he doesn't come back?

Taiju, Yuzuha, and Hakkai Shiba

Taiju is Taiju and no I will not elaborate

You and Yuzuha tried to keep Hakkai safe as much as you could

You felt like a failure when you couldn't keep Hakkai from the beatings

Hakkai never blamed you, just wished he could do more for you

Yuzuha and you never really got along, but were close in the sense that you had the same goal

Hakkai usually got into fights because someone was talking shit about you

Hakkai wants you and Mitsuya to meet. How wonderful would it be if his two favorite people were friends?

Hanma Shuji

overprotective

Don't even try getting into his business, he'll molly whop your ass

You can join a gang, just not his. No special reason except he can bring you and your guys in to help his gang

You've tried to get him to stop smoking but he's too stubborn

Will randomly pick you up and haul you around simply because he can

You're trying to relax at home? now you're perched in your brothers lap because he wanted you there. Don't fight back, it'll be an actual fight

Despite him being Hanma, you both do love each other dearly

You came home from school one day and he was all cut up from a fight, of course you had to patch him up

he trusts no one else with his injuries

Makato Suzuki

Do NOT go into his room without knocking

Just keep the tv volume up at all times, no one wants to hear that

He does love you, but leave him alone for real

After the fight with the third years he came home and collapsed on the couch next to you

"What the hell happened to you?" "Would you shut up?"

Everyday he comes home after that you were ready to patch him up and make him food

Takuya Yamamoto

Please, you're this sweet babies whole world

Talks non stop about you

if you pick him up from school he's the happiest person ever

Takuya doesn't care that he can't fight, he will still hit his friends if they try anything with you. Fighting? Flirting? He's punching them.

His phone background is you and him on his birthday, it changes every year

Naps are king when he's home from school

Make plans with him, please, he loves you

[theonlyshadeofgray]

Hey, I’m Grayson Finn Winchester. But people really just call me Gray. I’m In my sixth year of Hogwarts as a Slytherin and I’m seventeen years old. I’m also a pure blood and heir to the Winchester name. But I don’t care for that purity shit.

I enjoy reading literature, I’m a bit of a hopeless romantic myself. I also like partying, I might have been behind most of the parties that the Slytherin host and food- if you buy me a slice of pie you have won me over.

Slytherins:

Ambrose Berrywill- @ambrose-ellis-berrywill

Pandora Rosier- @pandoras-nox

Evan Rosier- @whokilledevanrosier

Jamie Min-ho- @thathojamie

Lucius Malfoy- @malfoy-lu

Bartemius Crouch Jr- @lifeofthe-barty

Dorcas Meadowes- @cas-not-the-band

Severus Snape- @severusprince-snape

Bellatrix Black- @the-queen-bellatrix

Rabastan Lestrange- @feeblemortal

Edmund Avery- @averykissableguy

Bruce Mulciber- @fire-allayer

Persephone Lylia- @daughter-of-spring

Anastasia Selwyn- @anastasia-selwyn

Vidalia Carrington- @vidaliadelafairy

Valentina Zabini- @vszabini

Nia Dolohov- @antoniadolohov

Rodolphus Lestrange- @rodolphus-le-strange

Charlotte Webster- @charlieandthehoneydukesfactory

Andy Black- @andromedashoax

Narcissa Black- @flowers-of-narcissus

Regulus Black- @little-king-official

Hufflepuff:

Sybill Trelawney- @sybill-patrica-trelawney

Imogen Morningstar- @imogenmorningstar

Adam Morningstar- @adam-lukas-morningstar

Elias Smith- @magandang-kaluluwa

Alex Kemet-Ali- @kingalexanderthegreat

Amos Diggory- @fawningamos

Oliver Hrdina- @oxxen--free

Ravenclaw:

Gabby Chen- @gabbyjchen

Carson Rose- @carsonsaxelrose

Kingsley Shacklebolt- @king-ofthe-crop

Gilderoy Lockhart- @mystical-magical-me

Emmeline Vance- @emmelineandhervans

Xeno Lovegood- @xeno-graphical

Theodore Sinclair- @tjsinclairofficial

Camille Laurier- @camille-laurier

Rita Skeeter- @poison-penmanship

Gryffindors:

Azalea Anderson- @xoazalea

Hestia Jones- @hjonesworld

Marlene Mckinnon- @marls-mckinn0n

Lily Evans- @lilyevansoffical

Alice Fortescue- @alicethekindone

Mary McDonald- @mary-mcdeal

Peter Parker- @wormy-loves-ch33se

James Potter- @james-the-amazing-potter

Remus Lupin- @looneymoonyy

Sirius Black- @thebr1ghteststar

Phoenix- @flyasaphoenix

Addison Caddel- @addison-caddel

Magnolia Matthews- @lialovergirl

Frank Longbottom- @k1ndest-keeper

Gavin Prescott- @gav-the-rockstar

Molly Prewett- @mollberryshortcake

Fabian Prewett- @fabian-with-an-f

[emeritusemeritus]

No Good Deed [George Weasley x Reader]

Part 9 (final)

Part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Pairing: {George Weasley x Reader} mentions of previous Fred Weasley x Reader.

Timeline: Set a few years after DH, loosely following Canon.

Summary: A few years after Fred’s death, the investors of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes demand changes to the name. All it would take is two years of a fake marriage to fix the issues, but no good deed goes unpunished.

Warnings: Fake marriage trope because we love the cliché. Mentions of death (Fred). Friends to lovers. Slow burn but mentions of kissing and eventual smut. Swearing. George calls us Angel. Drinking. SMUT. The smut has arrived! P in V, oral (both). Angst, sadness, grief. Mentions of cheating, infidelity. Tags will be updated with each chapter. Not Beta-read or spell checked.

The final chapter of this whirlwind story 🖤

In complete contrast to the bustling crowd and noisy room of chattering people, Diagon Alley was practically deserted at this late hour, the shops king since closed with only the hospitality locations open. Looking up at the familiar orange building, you pulled out your wand and cast the series of spells to unlock the protective enchantments before stepping inside and locking back up. You slipped out of your heels by clinging onto the stair rail before scooping them up in your hands and carrying them with you as you ascended the stairs, for once knowing exactly what you needed.

You knew if you returned to the flat George would immediately find you before you could have the chance to clear your head, to work out what you wanted and what you needed to say. There was only one thing that would bring you comfort now and as if you were completely on autopilot, you climbed the stairs and entered the flat above the shop.

It was different to how you remembered it, much emptier now then how it had been so many years ago, of course due to most of George's practical things being at your flat. You paused, standing outside the first door on the left after the little closer and hovered your hand across the doorknob, taking a deep breath to stabilise yourself before you slowly opened the door. Fred's room.

It was almost exactly as you remembered it though it was lifeless and the air was a little stale, a natural consequence of it being shut up for so long. Paperwork, scattered notes still littered the desk, along with a myriad of bits and bobs that he used whilst working on his new projects. The bed was made, the mismatch of random sheets and covers making you smile as they looked so perfectly Fred, so much so that you couldn't help but walk over and run your hand over the soft fabric, remembering how it had felt against your skin so long ago. Just like George, he had a large dresser against the back wall, almost like a complete mirror of George's room layout in reverse and you found yourself drawn to it almost immediately.

You opened a drawer and reached inside, feeling tears welling up in your eyes at the sight. His green 'F' jumper, knitted so many years ago by Molly, folded neatly into the drawer, right on top. You pulled it out and held it up to your face, desperately searching for the smell you remembered. It still smelt like him, though it was faint. The sugary sweet smell mixed with a natural musk and a side note of smoke, like a marshmallow that had been toasted a little too long. It mixed deliciously with the scent of Molly's washing powder concoction and blended all together to create the exact smell of Fred. Sweet and smoky, warm and comforting, just like him.

Tears streamed silently down your face as you held the jumper up to your face, never wanting to stop smelling the scent that filled your nose and your mind, so desperately wanting to feel him surround you. You took a seat on the creaky chair at his desk, still clutching the jumper tightly as you allowed yourself a little cry, though you weren't quite sure what you were crying for. Was it Freddie? A longing for simpler times when it was just the three of you without any complications. Was it George, and the events that had happened? Seeing him with someone else or his declaration of love that had felt so vividly real? Either way, your mind was a complete mush of emotion and memories, everything seeming to haunt you in that moment.

"I'm so sorry Freddie," you said out loud, tears still streaming down your face. "I just wanted to help. I couldn't let them take this away from George, not when he'd already lost so much. We both have."

You knew it was pointless to have a conversation with him, to speak to him as if he was there, as if he'd reply to you but in that moment, it helped. There was so much you needed to say to him that it seemed like the perfect time to unload your feelings.

"It's ridiculous isn't it, I'm completely pathetic. You'd tell me wouldn't you? Tell me I was being a prat, to just talk to him, 'it's not like he's going to petrify you'," you laughed through your tears, imagining the words coming out of Fred's mouth. "I miss you so much." More tears flowed as you spoke the words out loud, the silence of the room only highlighting your loss.

You were about to speak again when a picture on the desk caught your eye, one you'd never seen before. It was taken on Christmas Day at Grimmauld Place, just after Arthur had gotten home from St Mungo's. It was you, Fred and George, all dressed in your Christmas gifts from Molly and Arthur, the matching scarves for the twins and your own though yours was slightly darker in colour with your initial stitched into the flowing bit at the bottom. You were all smiling and laughing together, though you couldn't remember what about, huddled together around the fire in the lounge. You were looking at Fred and belly laughing, hunched over a little and resting your head against his shoulder. Fred looked completely elated, eyes almost closed in laughter, from the looks of it he was the instigator, as per usual. George was looking at you, openly cracking up with laughter but his eyes were focused in on you, his hand on your shoulder.

That one photo alone had seemed to give you complete clarity. It had cleared your head of all complications and all the events of the night, the good and the bad, and had transported you back to the time you were happiest, forcing you to realise what was truly important.

"How the bloody hell do you always know how to get me?" You mumbled with a smirk, speaking to Fred again as you tore yourself away from the photo. You knew what had to be done now, the time spent amongst Fred's things giving you the adjustment you needed to realise what your priorities should be. You stood up and walked over to the drawer, folding up the jumper and pressing a kiss to the embroidered F on the front before you placed it back into the drawer.

Closing the door behind you felt like closing another chapter in your life, a parting of ways of your old self as you prepared for what needed to be done. You walked out of the shop, stopping to place your heels on and locked up before apparating away back to your flat.

"Angel?" You heard almost as soon as your feet touched the ground. He sounded a mixture of relieved and panicked as he stepped into view, calling out for you. "Angel, I was so worried."

He reaches out as if he's going to pull you in to his arms but stops himself, knowing that you might not want him anywhere near you after the events earlier. He sees the messed up makeup on your face, no doubt fat tear marks littering your cheeks and his face immediately drops.

"I'm so sorry, I know you saw everything and I can't tell you how sorry I am. I never should have been up there with her, I realise it was stupid now but I really believed her little tale about the thestral thrashers- not that that's important now." He cuts himself off, realising he was waffling but you could hardly listen to him, too occupied by the genuinely remorseful look in his eyes. He looked more devastated than you did, and that was saying something. "I know our marriage is... complicated... but I would never do anything like that to you, I just couldn't."

His words hang in the air for a few moments as you'd process them, believing his every word.

"I know," you say quietly, the first time you'd spoken since arriving home.

"I know you might not believe me and- wait," he says, realising what you said. "You really believe me?"

"Yes George," you say stepping forward to reach out for him. Like an involuntary response, he pulls you in to his arms, never once taking his eyes off your face. There's a few moments that pass as you hold on to each other in comfortable silence and it's like the tension, the hurt and the distance between you had disappeared instantly in that moment. Water under the bridge, you thought.

"I'm sorry I haven't been around much, I've barely had time to sleep in between running the shop, sorting the new lines and getting the investors off my back," he admits with a bashful smile, stroking your hair as you hold on to each other.

"I could have helped you," you say, enjoying the soft material of his suit against your bare arms.

"I already ask too much of you," he says with a dismissive shrug, though his tone is light.

"I'm your wife," you say with your own shrug, and a smile, as if it was the most natural excuse in the word.

"Yeah, you are," he replies with a wide smile, still stroking your hair, as if the information had slowly sunk in, making him realise that you'd do anything for him.

"I have to ask," you say softly, gently pulling away and walking him over to the sofa by your joined hands until you're seated with your legs grazing one another.

"Anything," he says honestly.

"What happened?" You ask quietly, trying to keep the emotions out of your voice but some slipped through. "The honeymoon was, well it was perfect but then everything stopped. You didn't touch me anymore, hardly looked at me, what did I do?"

He looks up at you with a look of complete heartbreak at your final question and he scoots across the sofa to grab your legs, making sure you were focused on him as his right hand comes up to cup your face and jaw.

"You didn't do anything Angel, it was perfect but I was being selfish," he explains, his eyes imploring yours as if he needs you to know that it wasn't your fault. "When I accidentally called you, that, well I realised how insensitive I was being, how I'd let myself get carried away with the whole thing. You agreed to marry me for the sake of the business, it was never meant to be more but I couldn't help myself. I'd gone too far and I'd not considered your feelings, so I pulled away to make things less complicated."

"Which complicated things," you retort, a slight smirk tugging at your mouth. He snorts and nods as he takes in your words.

"I realise now that it was a stupid idea," he answers truthfully, still gently nodding. "I just didn't want you to feel any pressure to you know... with me. The last thing I'd ever want was to feel like an obligation, especially if you weren't into me."

You can't help but let out a little snort through your nose at his words, realising how completely wrong he'd got it.

"Yeah because I don't want to have sex with the boy I've fancied since fourth year," you sarcastically retort with a slight roll of your eyes and a smirk.

You wished you could have recorded George's reaction to your words so that you could replay it over and over again for the rest of your life. He chokes on nothing, eyes bulging as he stares at you in complete shock.

"You.. what?"

"What?" You ask, not sure what part he was questioning.

"We've been married for nearly six months, friends for well over a decade and this is the first time I'm hearing about this?" He looks utterly bewildered and it's all you can do not to chuckle, though that would probably not be the right reaction for this moment. "That would have been very helpful to know six months ago," he says, slowly becoming less shocked and more smiley. You smile back at him and nod, realising that you should have just told him, even if you ran the risk of losing him like you'd always feared.

"I was terrified of losing you, or making things awkward," you admit, "the last thing I ever wanted was to make things uncomfortable between us."

"Wait, what about Fred?" He asks, suddenly remembering your past situation-ship with his twin.

This time, you reach out for George's leg, trying to force the words out that you knew needed to be said after taking a big breath.

"Fred knew I liked you, he used to tease me about it incessantly, he figured it out just before fifth year," you say with a smile, memories of his teasing flashing in your mind as he realised not long after their trip to Egypt just how hung up on his twin you were. "But you never seemed to notice me, at least not like that. But then you asked Angelina to the ball and I was so upset, I knew then that you'd never look at me like that. Fred came to comfort me and we ended up drinking this huge bottle of fire whiskey and he asked me to the ball, though I always knew it was more of a pity date he always insisted that it wasn't." You paused, thinking of the picture in your memory box of you all at the Yule Ball. "Watching you dance with Angelina, you just looked so happy and it killed me."

You paused to take a breath, trying not to cry as you thought back to that night and how painful it had been to see him look so happy with someone else.

"Fred kissed me that night, told me I was beautiful. He knew he wasn't a replacement for you but he was the 'next best thing'," you air quoted him, hearing his voice so clearly, a chuckle falling from your lips. "It was never really supposed to go anywhere past that one night together but I guess we became friends with benefits and though I did have feelings for him, it was always you. He knew that, it's why we were never truly together. But then you found out about us and we realised that it had pushed you further away, I'd never get a chance with you after that so we tried to make the most of it but we could never really be together. I always wanted you."

He was silent as he listened to you, which only made you want to fill the somewhat awkward gaps in the conversation but you don't, knowing nothing more needed to be said.

George surprises you by pulling you in for a steaming hot kiss, without a single ounce of hesitation as you'd laid yourself bare before him, finally admitting everything you should have said at the beginning.

He pulls away suddenly with a look of pure mischief in his eyes.

"If you wanted to date me you could have just asked, didn't need to trick me into marrying you," he snarks and you instantly gasp and hit him in the chest as he laughs at you.

"I didn't trick you! You needed me to marry you for the business!"

"Hmmmm sure," he says, still smiling as he kisses you again, his hand cupping your jaw as the kiss heats up once again, though this time it's much more playful and teasing. "I'll let you tell our grandkids that."

"Pppft tell them yourself," you snark as he pulls you closer to him, identical grins on both of your faces.

"Oh I will," he smirks once he's got you pretty much in his lap, an impressive feat considering your rather restrictive dress. "Wait."

He shifts you slightly until you're beside him on the sofa again and he moves to stand up from the couch before kneeling down in front of you, on one knee.

"I realise we've done this completely out of sync here but I have loved you for so long, never thinking I'd ever get to be with you in my wildest dreams. Would you do me the honour of being my wife, wholly and completely?"

You surge forward even before he'd finished talking and sweep him into a breathtaking kiss, your hands reaching up into his hair and across his shoulders as he clutches at your waist. When you pull away, you're both in complete bliss, smiling at each other like fools as you catch your breath.

"I'm so glad, because I couldn't keep my hands off you for one more minute, look at you baby, so beautiful," he says, voice dropping lower as his eyes wash over you and your slightly dishevelled dress. His hands sneak back around your waist and around your jaw after pulling your hair away from your shoulder, lips crashing down onto yours, ready to claim you anew as his wife.

Taglist requests

@ferntv

@aigowen

@that-lame-ghoul9000

@jules-with-stars

@sleepiemocha

@seppys-return-to-madness

@wtvbabes

@the-mrs-malik-styles

@cedslover

@nisapoosworld

@dashhhhkaaa

@ghostlytv

@nerdymesss

@costheticbabe

@cliffburtonscig

@lildrunkjkk

@levylovegood

@jewelsrules

@jphxnix

@asuperconfusedgirl

@staceys-moms-thighs

@nighttimewrites

@egghasnoleg

@mel119g

@angelrioter

@minatozsana

@quinny921

@blahhh819

@comicgollum20

@moonieseyelash

@marisimps

@xslashers

@70s-chic

@shadyunknowncreation

@rockabieesstuff

@moon-2424

@chx-la

@malenk

@jimmywoosimp

@soulessfictionaddict

@twistedlaces1909

@brookiecookiez0

@nightowlgirl

@fiathefirst

@football1921

@in-the-middle-of-the-sadness

@rk-ceres

@kisses4fred

@apolloleprince

@slashersimpshadow

@slytherinambitious

@screamingoverfiction

@rhunew

@tomhockstetter7-111

@hagridshaircare

@ellouisa17

@fonderaura

@clemlament

@jennapancake

@murderisfunlol

@ohantonia

@storytime-20

@guavacookie23

@satansdarlin

@smartoneamia

@littlelillysjs

@victorylr

@nanamisfootrest

@nulixity

@03michi01

@hjpbiggestdrider

@wzardweasley

@katarinealbers