#but there always has to be an explanation for what I'm doing or thinking

[newamsterdame]

i think the reason superman 2025 felt so comicbook-y is not just because of the color grading, or the willingness to be optimistic and silly, or the worldbuilding/characters who did not get extensive build up/explanation, but because it feels like an episode of a story we're in the middle of. most cape comics don't need to rehash character origins and introductions (although many often do). you can just be thrown into superman being able to call up his friends, and aliens and metas and dimensional rifts already being par for course, and lois already knowing who clark is and them being in a relationship.

there's a brand of superhero movie we're now familiar with, which sets out to have each arc of a larger story/character/world play out at the same pace at the same time-- the origin of the superhero and their journey to heroism is mirrored in their romantic relationships origin, establishment, culmination, is mirrored in the villain's origin, establishment, culmination, is mirrored in the worldbuilding's origin, establishment, culmination, etc etc etc. there's story sense in this structure, and it can be incredibly satisfying when done well! but when it's the mandate of the story rather than in service of it, it can get stale, nonsensical, unsatisfying.

i like the potency of origin stories as much as the next person, but my enjoyment of cape comics has always been what you can do with the decades of lore, not the lore itself. i want to read comics where there are characters i've never met before but the mc already has a relationship with, who pop in for coffee and advice and pop out again, or who show up to help even if it isn't their fight. i want all of the threads of wordbuilding to come together in fun or interesting ways, even if it gets a little silly, as long as the stakes are real. i want to see relationships at all stages, not just beginning. i want to get a sense that there is History and Story here, and to not always be on the ground level of its creation.

superman 2025 has character arcs, relationship arcs, arcs about heroes finding their purpose, etc. but they aren't all tied in time/place/pacing to one another, and i think that's Great. i feel like i got a full story, a satisfying outcome to most if not all questions, and a good end point. but i'm left knowing stuff happened before and will happen after this movie. and that more than anything else Feels like what a legendary character like superman should be in popular culture, a character who isn't actually known best for his beginning but for his endurance.

[ddejavvu]

Mmmmmk mmmk but what about oh so professional mr. hotchner who will finger you in the passenger seat of his car

this post is 18+, minors dni.

"Seriously?" He murmurs, glancing over at you briefly at a red light, "Right here? Right now?"

"What?" You frown incredulously at him, nodding at the now-green traffic light, "Go. What are you talking about?"

He keeps his eyes on the road but his words seem to bore right through you, like he's staring straight into your unfiltered thoughts, "I know you're in the mood."

Your stomach drops- it slithers right down beneath your seatbelt and plops into the balls of your feet.

"Excuse me?"

"You're clenching your thighs." He responds to your incredulity with nothing more than a calm, straight, even tone, and you feel a little like an unsub being interrogated, "And I saw you biting your thumbnail. You only do that when you're staring off into space, and you only do that when you're thinking about whatever's got you clenching your legs."

"Alright SSA Hotchner," You grumble, tossing your head to the side to stare out the window and avoid any teasing he'll throw your way, "You got me. It just- snuck up on me, I guess. It happens. Forget about it."

You don't see him jerk the steering wheel, but your view out of the window drastically shifts as he turns into a lane that should have escaped him. You startle and stare at him, watching as he off-roads only slightly to end up in an empty parking lot, lit only by a single streetlight that's losing its luster, flickering where it barely illuminates a thing.

"I'm not forgetting about it." He offers as an explanation, unbuttoning the cuff of his sleeve and bunching it up above his elbow, "We can't do anything too intense, because if our clothes are wrinkled someone's going to notice. But we can take care of it quick, no one will know."

"Aaron," You hum warily, "Here?"

"It's not romantic," He eyes you knowingly, "But this is where we are."

"I think there's something wrong with me." You muse, tugging your pantyhose down your legs and hiking the hem of your skirt up to your hips, "I should be calling you a dog right now."

"Be honest, was this your fantasy?" Aaron teases, and it's a tender moment that helps relieve some of your nerves surrounding having sex with your boyfriend in an empty parking lot, "Is this what got you worked up in the first place?"

"Oh yeah." You hum, but when he teases a hand in the crease of your inner thigh it becomes a choked sigh, "The graffiti on that building, the vomit stain three spots down- couldn't be sexier."

"You'll like it anyways," He grins knowingly, and you hate that he's right- your body reacts to his touch like it's been begging for him, and you suppose it has, "Doesn't matter where we are, I'll always know how to take care of you."

[ocelotted]

i need u all to know that this panel is my roman empire like. there are three things i'm thinking about at any given moment two of them are the Stresses of Life and the final one is this goddamn panel. this cemented rui as one of my top favourite ghouls in my mind and was also an INCREDIBLY formative influence on my characterisation of him [incoherent rambling under the cut]

at this point in time i'm pretty sure that rui and mc do not know each other very well at all. they met on the galaxy express and had some minor interactions since then but they're like. acquaintances pretty much. and yet LOOK AT HIS FACE,,,,,, that's some tragic romance lead type shit. of course you could attribute it to a bunch of situational things: they're under attack by an anomaly, innocent lives in danger, stakes are extraordinarily high etc etc but. imo that doesn't explain the sheer heartbreak on his face

now a very reasonable explanation is this scenario being an incredibly stark reminder of his curse and how it inhibits him. instinctively he reaches forward to save her and then stops himself, horrified at the prospect of almost killing her without meaning to, terrified by the fact that she's throwing herself headfirst into danger, and saddened by the realisation that right now there's nothing he can do to save her. the hopelessness and frustration that would engender is captured incredibly well in his expression and it makes good sense. perhaps this is my personal biases talking but i just don't think that's the face you'd make if it was just a regular acquaintance in front of you.....

anyways my actual point of discussion here is the reason why rui seems so attached to mc in particular!!

firstly going into his traits as depicted in canon and in my interpretation of him. right off the bat rui strikes me as someone who loves easily and loves hard (or at least would prior to being cursed and made to put all his barricades up). i don't necessarily agree with his descriptions as a playboy, but i do see him as a sort of accidental heartbreaker in the sense that he would just give love so freely and genuinely that it would hurt him and others unintentionally. as of now he seems very settled in this easy front he exhibits (mc describes his behavior as being befitting of a host after all) but there are times where that facade cracks and this panel is, i feel, the first time the audience is privy to it. we literally see his heart bleed on his face and it is really really jarring since we finally get to see him as something more than a cheerful flirt.

now i know this goes against what i said about this not being a face you'd make for some random acquaintance BUT i do think that mc being there specifically has some weight.........

overall i think that this panel serves as a really great summary of rui and mc's dynamic as a whole. there's a lot of emphasis in the narrative and in their interactions on them finding common ground in the form of their curses - but we also see that the respective ways in which their circumstances force them to navigate life at darkwick are very different, and that in itself is really huge for their dynamic.

mc's curse and her bond with the sage ring incentivise her to interact with the world as much as possible - it's repeatedly affirmed that she needs the ghouls' support to ensure she has the best possible shot at breaking it. she's constantly running from house to house, getting wrapped up in their business, always on the move. for many of the ghouls she is indeed a sort of mirage - lingering out of reach because even subconsciously, she is distanced from these people to minimise the hurt her eventual demise/transformation will cause.

rui's curse, on the other hand, inhibits him from engaging with the world. he definitely can, and he's proficient at it by nature, but it's always with a pronounced degree of caution and he is very much isolated from the so-called 'human experience'. he's cooped up in obscuary 90% of the time, doesn't attend classes, does chores, gardens, rinse and repeat. with that has to come a profound sense of just being left behind as the world passes by. being secure, but stagnant, rooted to one place because venturing anywhere else is such an incredible risk. it's pretty much the exact opposite of mc's own set of circumstances. i find it a really interesting parallel, even moreso in the context of their relationship

no wonder he seems so attached to her - ironically or not, mc represents a sort of hope for rui, an affirmation that being cursed doesn't have to mean being cut off almost entirely from the world. that you can still live and love and be loved by people without fear!! and imagine how painful that attachment must be when his existence is (as i said before) so confined in comparison!! watching her move about from one thing to another, ostensibly getting further and further away while barely being able to reach out (in a literal sense) himself due to his own curse....... so close yet so far. that's got to be painful

in conclusion: rui is a sweetheart of the highest order and i'm chewing on his and mc's relationship + crying myself to sleep each night over this panel

[thats-the-biz-babe]

my final(ish) thoughts on 8x06/confessions/the break up (and tommy's pov):

so obviously my initial reaction when 8x06 aired was to go. okay. this is the most stupid break up of all time. nothing about this makes any sense (*sobs*). this is still true, and i'll say for the most part i just have to put it down to bad writing. but it's canon regardless, so we have no choice but to take what we're given lol. if anything this serves as proof of why arguing about who is really to blame for this whole thing is pointless.

i'm sure this isn't news, but the problem with confessions as an episode overall is that it brings up so many questions and proceeds to answer none of them. i'm not gonna answer them either, because i'd be lying if i said i knew, but i have some ideas so i'm gonna talk about my thoughts on it anyway, including the areas that i think are the biggest offenders for shitty writing.

if this comes across as more sympathetic to tommy's perspective, it's because it's his pov that we're missing the most context for / that i have the most questions about (bc he's not a main character). so that's going to be the focus here, but this isn't intended as a criticism of buck whatsoever. and yeah, a lot of this has definitely already been said, but i wanted to compile my thoughts on everything before we go into season 9. and hopefully we get a reconciliation, even if it is half-arsed and we don't get any resolution or even explanation for their initial conflict (not holding my breath, especially after they tried to retcon the whole thing in 8x11).

i love bucktommy, we know this (i hope?). i think they're perfect together and they love each other and they should get back together and get married and buy a house together yadda yadda yadda. however, one of my biggest criticisms of their story line is we really didn't get to see much of them when they were actually dating. there were a few (super sweet) moments we did get shown on screen, especially in masks (so right before they broke up) but as often is the case with this show, we were left to fill in a lot of gaps. we really don't know what point they were at pre-breakup because after they got together their relationship was more or less neglected on screen. most of it happened during the hiatus, and they can't focus ALL their time on them (this isn't the bucktommy show after all). but any guesses as to what they were like as a couple are just that, guesses. did it feel like it had started to develop into something more serious at that point? or was it still early stages? what pace were they actually going at?

an example of what i mean is at the anniversary dinner, buck was checking out those girls in front of tommy, and when they flirted with him he didn't tell them he was on a date. he looked pretty guilty about it too, but whether or not it was just supposed to be generally over the fact that he was checking them out (hence tommy reassuring him), i don't know. maybe it was because he knew he was supposed to correct them, but he obviously didn't feel comfortable doing it for whatever reason? this isn't entirely relevant, but i always wonder whether it was supposed to be a really clumsy way of reminding the audience that he's bisexual (screaming at you: he still likes women!!! even though he's with a man!!!) i mean it would be better if they just used the fucking word...

anyway, what we also don't know is whether this was a common occurrence, we know buck is out to the people closest to him at this point but how does he act in public around strangers? is he still uncomfortable being seen out with a man? can tommy sense his reluctance / hesitation at holding his hand when they're out together? does buck correct people when they assume him and tommy are friends? he was a lot more openly affectionate at the coffee date, so i like to think that after that he was okay. but realistically, him grabbing tommy's hand to prove to him that he's ready in the moment doesn't actually mean all his discomfort is suddenly gone or that he won't still struggle in the future. who knows.

this part is purely speculation based on what i know about tommy, but i can imagine that not being something he wants to push buck on for fear of making him uncomfortable. so as long as he doesn't go back into first date territory, how much would tommy let slide? the impression i have is that he doesn't see the things he wants and needs to be any where near as much of a priority, especially in a relationship he doesn't think will last. it's all about buck's pace, not making him uncomfortable or pressuring him before he's ready. does tommy ever ask for anything? if that was what they were trying to do, the writers didn't exactly do a convincing job in showing us a relationship that was equally balanced.

this isn't me accusing buck of any of these things, and if it is true i definitely don't think it was intentional on his part. i don't think he was a bad boyfriend, and it was tommy's responsibility as much as his to express how he was feeling and what he wanted (buck isn't a psychic!!). it was an active choice on tommy's part to play the role of the "perfect starter boyfriend" for buck and not put himself into a position where he gets too invested (which didn't work, clearly). but my point is that we have no idea whether things like this were a one off or not. we only really see tommy taking care of buck and not vice versa, but i won't dwell on it too much because at the end of the day buck is the main and they only have so much time on screen with each other.

another example is we also have no idea whether buck has called himself bisexual off screen at this point. not that he is required to label himself, but was the conversation they had at the anniversary dinner the first time they broached the topic of sexuality since they got together? it certainly seems likely that they didn't ever go deep into it before considering what that conversation onscreen entailed. they had takeout the night before, they were obviously spending a lot of time together, so what went wrong? (looking for an answer other than "they spent the whole time fucking" preferably lol)

asking tommy if he had ever been with a woman was weird (they did sort of touch on that during their first date), so did they never talk about dating history again in the six months they were together? tommy never mentioned being engaged before? he didn't seem reluctant to give that info up, he wasn't exactly hiding it, and it seems even stranger that buck never mentioned abby in all that time considering she was so influential to him, especially with the whole buck 1.0 -> 2.0 thing. buck also implies to eddie that he know's tommy's gay in 7x05, but it comes up again at the anniversary date like he doesn't know, and it's a strange thing to not have established already given they're six months in. sure, asking tommy why he wasn't checking out those women doesn't necessarily mean he didn't know that he's fully gay, it was probably just the opening he chose to get to the second question. but it seemed like a strange way to go about it when they could've just had him ask about tommy's past relationships / relationships with women straight up. then again this is tv and people can't just have conversations, they have to be triggered by something else (sigh). there's just so many better ways i can think of to naturally bring up the topic of exes, they do it in 7x04. anyway, buck says in season 7 that he wants to get to know tommy, but it does make you wonder how much they did actually get to know each other once they got the chance.

again, i'm fully aware that a lot of what the episode comes down to is lazy writing because they were just trying to get from point a to point b and the easiest way they found to do that was buck checking out women -> notices tommy isn't -> asks him why -> tommy says he's gay -> buck asks if he's ever been with a woman -> abby reveal -> buck spirals -> josh convo -> break up. you can say "oh but it doesn't matter because the writers clearly didn't think this far and any explanation you come up with won't actually be what they intended". true, but the fact is that that IS what happened canonically, and i feel like if i'm gonna meta any of this show i have to meta all of it, even the parts that don't make sense (and i'm having fun, sue me). if nothing else this stuff is interesting to delve into and fix in fanfic world. and yes... this also isn't exclusive to bucktommy. madney and bathena at the very least have had similar issues. athena didn't even know bobby's mother was still alive until recently after being married to him for years. i'd love to see them stop trying to manufacture cheap drama and do something substantial with the characters (if you need ideas, i'm right here tim) but we all know that's not gonna happen (sigh).

none of what i'm about to say is necessarily true because AGAIN my whole point is we don't know. but suddenly i start becoming far more sympathetic of tommy's position if after six months his boyfriend is still uncomfortable being seen with him in public and has entirely ignored and skipped over thinking about or talking about his sexuality in all that time. at this point it feels like he's avoiding it on purpose, and how can you be with someone who still seems ashamed of who they are with no real attempt to deal with it. despite it seeming that way it could just be that buck doesn't deal with having feelings for people well regardless of gender (which yes, does seem to be true). but you know what it looks like to someone who doesn't know that. and tommy likely sees buck as a super open, honest guy who doesn't normally hide how he's feeling.

again (i'll keep saying it), this comes down to lazy writing, but the whole josh convo and the comments about tommy being cruel was crazy to me because how do you not know this already? he knew michael, who went through something similar. tommy already admitted he used to be a dick back then and regrets his actions, and specifically on the subject of abby said that she deserved better. so the judgement over his past all of a sudden was really strange? obviously when it's someone really close to you it's harder to picture them like that, and even harder to get your head around when you hear the specifics. but does buck not know any queer history? did he not do any research? has he not spoken to josh / hen (still mourning the hen+buck scene we didn't get post coming out) at all about any of this since coming out? this part was clearly put in to hand hold the general audience through a lesson about how it used to be harder to be gay (and sucking ryan murphy's dick about it) but like i said, it's not the first time they've done a comphet storyline, and if they wanted to go back over it again it needed to be done better than that imo (not even getting into the fact that the abbytommy of it all makes no sense). anyway, i'll get back on track, it is what it is. it just makes me come back to the fact that buck seems not to show any interest in engaging in / learning about queer related things. it's a shame because sure, we've seen buck make out with a man on screen, refer to having a boyfriend, imply he sees a future with him etc but there has been no indication that he has started... looking at himself as a queer person ig? i mean since the last update we got on this front which was in 7x05 where he referred to himself as an ally multiple times (which i get, but times have changed). is this the show being scared to commit? a compromise for the homophobes who were upset about bi buck, by letting him date a man but not focusing too much on the "gay thing"?

so getting back to the point, if what we learned in confessions was anything to go by i wonder how much else they didn't talk about? and then buck asked him to move in? i understand why tommy didn't think they were gonna last if they were skipping so many steps. you don't want to start living with someone when you still feel that you aren't able to be honest with each other. you can't avoid bringing up certain subjects with each other and still expect any level of trust between you if you don't want the relationship to collapse very quickly. tommy seemed okay with buck checking out the women at the restaurant. he said it was okay to recognise they were attractive, which i get, but the actual flirting and the lack of a "hey i'm actually on a date with my boyfriend" would personally make me uncomfortable. and in that case i'd wonder if jumping into asking me to move in with him was just him being impulsive and not something he'd actually thought out, or something he was doing for the right reasons. is tommy gonna take that risk and uproot his entire life for someone who makes big decisions on such a whim? like, i don't even think this was just him being insecure, i think there could potentially have been some valid concerns here.

another thing is okay, buck could've said "move in with me" to mean they should move in together generally, but it did kinda sound like he was asking tommy to move into the loft. y'know, his tiny bachelor pad that didn't have walls between the rooms and certainly didn't have a muay thai gym or room for a carlift? this doesn't seem well thought out at all... or like he's properly considering how tommy might feel. not that i think this was something that buck didn't actually want (though how was tommy to know) but even though the sentiment was real the fact is it WASN'T well thought out. it was clearly (to the audience) something he decided as the result of the conversation he'd just had with josh, where he admitted he could see a future with tommy. and again, tommy doesn't know any of that because buck doesn't share his feelings with the only person who really needs to know!!! and whether tommy knows it or not, buck does have a history of making impulsive decisions like that.

it's true, this whole thing could've been a one off and the rest of their relationship could've been perfect. but we can only extrapolate based on what we're shown on screen, and i do think these are questions that are worth asking and that there is room for more nuance here. either way, tommy was still a complete idiot for running rather than saying how he felt, but i don't necessarily (key word) know if him being worried was as out of nowhere as it seemed. that's really gonna be down to however you want to interpret it, because i don't actually think we'll ever get the answers that we want. i don't think this is something the show cares about or has ever properly considered, but i'd love to find out more about tommy's perspective because there are two people involved and only one is a main.

i think the most important take away from this is that the writing of this show is horrendous, so it's probably best not to dwell on it (doesn't take his own advice). this is what happens when you dig too deep into a show that doesn't ask for anywhere near this much attention and makes absolutely no effort to be consistent or logical in it's writing. welp, at the end of the day despite the gaps in what we were shown on screen, the parts that we did see were enough to convince us that they do have amazing chemistry, and that they care for each other so intensely in a way that is really a first for both characters. a perfect fit, with so much potential left to explore. if they get back together, they definitely need to have some big conversations they put off the first time around (not that i expect we'll see any of it), but i don't think it's anything unfixable if they want to make it work. and as it's looking right now, it seems like they both still love each other and want each other back.

what do i want to see going forward? more screen time for the relationship, buck being open about having a boyfriend (yes, in public too), for tommy to continue being as caring as he has been, but maybe to see the reverse of that as well? more conversations, things that show us they do actually know each other and are comfortably being open / aren't hiding things from one another. more casual physical affection, the fact that they're a couple being obvious when they're in public together. i'd love to see them both out together with the 118 too, or just interactions with the rest of the cast in general. am i still holding out to hear the word bisexual on screen? idk. but i'd like to, i think it's important especially after all the weird jokes about abby turning men gay and buck not knowing which pool to jump back into. i want to see the show commit to this thing.

[ingravinoveritas]

I don't know if you seen on xitter about a person who tweeted about the age gap between michael and anna and how that person don't agree with it etc etc . Then the fans who literally obsessed with anna or blind too see what really happening in the relationship and always come up defensive when people have an opinion like they go in for the attack. But they seem to have forgotten that anna was pregnant and that why they got into a relationship. It wasn't cos they was in love or wanted to be together they decided to make it work cos of the situation anna was in. And 6 years on the relationship still looks like it not working out michael still has the awarkness and sad face when he pictured with anna, when michael is pictured or with his daughters or other ppl his face is beaming, happy, smiling.

I honestly wish these fans would stop giving out misformation out to new fans or just ppl cos that is not what happened.

Hi, Anon. I've been at a conference all day, but I have had people DMing me and letting me know what has happened.

To summarize: A teenager wrote a tweet about being uncomfortable with age gap relationships and mentioned Michael and Anna specifically (though they stated they did not have a problem with David and Georgia). This then led to a number of Michael's fans--adults, mind you--piling on and attacking this girl. All of this started yesterday, continued into today, and has now culminated in that teenager having messages sent to her DMs telling her to kill herself.

I am not going to link to any of the tweets publicly, as I have no desire to add any fuel to the fire. But to say that the behavior in the fandom today has been appalling is a massive understatement. It is NEVER, ever okay to send someone death threats or tell someone to kill themselves for any reason, least of all in the name of defending a relationship between two complete strangers.

Again, this person was not calling Michael or Anna names. She did not tag either one of them in her tweets or engage in harassment of any kind (and if she had, that would absolutely not have been acceptable and I would have no problem calling it out). The only thing she did was to say how she felt uncomfortable, and explain why. She had an opinion that people didn't like. And this was enough to set the fandom alight and tear apart a teenager with an account that has barely a hundred followers.

The other thing, too, is that in the past, Michael has made no secret of how he feels about people using him as an excuse to attack others:

It stands to reason, then, that if Michael thought he needed to defend Anna or their relationship, that he would very readily do it himself. It's likely he would not even have any idea of this teenager's tweets had it not been for the fandom drawing so much attention to it in the first place, so the odds of him even knowing about it went up substantially just because of all this uproar.

I'm also wondering why anyone would want to be a fan of someone who would be okay with or even encourage their fans defending them by telling people to kill themselves. Is that who they think Michael is? (Or, Anna, for that matter?) Because I truly do not think Michael would be the person we all admire so greatly if he was okay with that.

It's also not lost on me that some fans are in effect rewriting history by talking about Michael and Anna's relationship as if we know how they met, when neither one of them have ever actually mentioned it. To be clear, this is not saying that they owe anyone an explanation of when/how they met, but the automatic assumptions fans are making do not necessarily have a basis in reality, and could possibly even be hurtful to Michael or Anna if they do not accurately represent their relationship. Especially when Michael himself has said that her pregnancy was a surprise, and they both decided to try to make it work (which suggests a very different narrative to "They met and fell in love and chose each other, the end").

All that said, the point underscoring everything that has happened in the last day is that if--as many folks have insisted--Michael and Anna's relationship is perfect and they are madly in love, why do they need to be defended? Shouldn't the truth already be obvious, without having to be stated? And why should one random teenager on Twitter not liking the relationship be such a threat to their relationship?

In any case, today was a perfect example of what happens when people escalate instead of de-escalate, and how dangerous that "hive mind" fandom mentality can truly be. Yet given the blind item yesterday and then this person writing what they did, it seems like a lot of the knee-jerk reactions are belying what some fans may actually be feeling...

[8ft]

Haiii what's your favourite line from the fury route? (Doesn't have to be hers)

hi! this is a dangerous question to ask me!! :D

this is, easily, the one i consider my Absolute Favorite... but i feel like i'm doing her chapter a disservice by just picking one... so some more personal highlights are going to go under the cut, with some more in-depth explanations. THANK YOU FOR THE ASK!!!

what's interesting to me is that you can only get this line from taking one of the crueler options, telling her you want her to leave with you and then renegging on that. there's just a Tender Sorrow to it all.

huge fan of the way that, in quantum beak, Certified Wrathful Diva tower!fury still looks to you for comfort before tsm takes her. poor thing.

this one's always a hit on stream night, especially when i'm streaming to people who've never seen her chapter before. everyone LOVES "that's our stuff!" it's just. SUCH an insane reaction to this situation.

going the distance shares this sequence with tower!fury's rewound ending, but the absolute desperation in going the distance's version of this line just kind of. Gets Me.

besides him finally striking back at apotheosis for mistreating him in courage and madness, adversary!fury has some of my favorite broken moments ever. i'm biased to his version of this route over cold's just because of how empathetic he is towards her. like... of course, these lines can be interpreted as being directed at tlq, but broken obviously sees himself reflected in her. i find the way he connects with vessels like fury and cage sweet- the pristine cut really fleshed him out :D i'd also like to point out the way broken counts the princess as part of your group if you leave with her ("it's just the three of us now") whereas broken only acknowledges himself and tlq.

i think i've said all i can about this one already. it'd be awesome if you'd stop running away from what the two of you were meant to be from the start. she'd really like that.

idk this one just awoke something in me

gayyyyyyyyyyy

[waifuoftomonori]

6/26 - Daily Random Paragraphs

He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but not something this normal. Talk about anticlimactic. (Well, hopefully not that anticlimactic.)

Tomonori’s dick wasn’t three feet long, covered in spikes, or raspberry-Popsicle-blue. It was just a dick. In fact, it might be the most average-looking dick Shinra had ever seen (not that he’d spent much time searching).

[allisonreader]

I'm in a mood, so below are some more personal ramblings.

This hasn't come up recently, but I find that in this particular moment that I am thinking about it. And that is most people's perception of me, both in person and online. I find it so interesting that the general perception of me is this bright, bubbly personality that can lighten the mood with my smile. (Obviously this is extremely a generic description but it is apt. As I have been told it in some variation throughout my life.)

But quite literally since at least kindergarten, the two most common comments on my report cards throughout my school career were about how I was a delight to have in class and my smile always lit up the classroom with my particular knack for procrastination mentioned shortly after.

I've always been the one with a smile to the point where more than once in high school when I had a more neutral expression on my face, I had people ask me out of concern if something was wrong, when nothing was.

So anyways I do think that it's interesting that this perception of me even bleeds into how I come across online. That this "sunshine and rainbows" sort of positive personality shines through what I write and post, even though I feel like it doesn't always. But I've had more than one person make comments that say exactly that to some degree. Bright is often used.

And I guess why I'm thinking about this right now is because at the moment I certainly don't feel bright or bubbly. Right now I feel a touch lonely. Which aches across the chest.

A big problem I have though is that I like to bury and ignore that feeling sometimes. I will sometimes reach out to people, but will I admit to why I'm trying to contact anyone, no. Because why admit to loneliness or anything else? Not when you can bury them down deep. I'm not looking for any advice, because I know what the solution is. It's getting out there, reaching out to people whether I want to or not and going and doing something. (Here enters procrastination once again.)

Anyways I just needed to write that out currently. And now this can get lost in the void. Though I am up for a chat.

[museofzia]

stop being afraid of your confidence

one of the problems i had when i began reality shifting was that i constantly believed that my confidence of "i'm going to shift tonight" will end in disappointment. however, this didn't just go for self assurance, but also other aspects.

i would spend most of my time researching, not to learn new things, but to reassure myself. i didn't believe in myself or the information i was receiving as well as i wished to.

my completely false narrative that everything has to go one way to work properly was what held me down. instead of making my current mindset and preparing my comfort to move forward, i constantly tried to change, believing that all i need to shift is far from who i actually am and what i have.

idolization

maybe there's that one influencer who posts shifting content that shares information and experiences, and you envy them. heavily. the truth is, no matter how much you try to follow their advice and shift in the way that they do, you'll always be reminded that you don't know them. their intention is likely to help you pick up some different advice and experiment with what you have, but if your immediate instinct is to try to integrate into their routines and headspace instead of employ yours, you're putting in more unnecessary work to adapt a mindset you don't even know the half of. sounds tedious, right?

doubt

doubt can be rooted into past misinformation, unlikelihood, people doubting you, and more. the thing about doubt is, most shifters do almost anything to try their best to get away from it-- the biggest thing is, suppressing it. DO NOT DO THIS. suppressing your feelings will let them grow in an untouched area of your mind; allowing these feelings to nurture and stick to every new piece of information you have will eventually intoxicate the open-wonder you have to new ideas. instead, begin to find out where this doubt lies. is it in yourself? is it in shifting as a whole? if it's in shifting, then begin looking into not only shifting, but relating topics. multiverse travel in buddhism, the multiverse theory, astral projection, quantum theory, quantum immortality, and more. these are not the exact same as shifting, but fall under the same idea of travel between multiverses. these relating explanations and theories will help you put the dots together. if your doubt lies in yourself and what you are capable of, realize that this isn't a situation of moving houses-- you are able to shift anytime and anywhere. you don't need a comfortable bed and 2L of water to shift your awareness. you don't even need a script. it's a matter of assuming and settling in. you are in your desired reality, just as much as you're in this one.

a need for routine

know- you don't *need* a full blown method, meditation, or routine in order to reality shift. you don't need to know exactly how your room will look, how you will look, how your house will look-- it's nice to know these things, but they aren't completely needed. when you take a nap, you automatically assume that you'll wake up in the same space, same reality. you don't think anything of it. assume you're waking up in your desired reality. as you close your eyes, simply acknowledge and regard your desired reality as the reality you're going to be in. think of when you'll wake up, and where. understand the process, there is no almost. the biggest thing is, this reality won't feel new or unfamiliar. because it isn't. you're just as fond of that reality as this one, because you've grown up in there too. that reality is yours.

do not nurture a mindset of common doubt. it won't help you. you deserve to shift just as much as the next person.

you're not special.. you shift too.

Love, Zia

[iraprince]

gonna show u guys a little opalescent highlight hack i threw together today

rainbow gradient above your main figure (i usually have all my main figure folders/layers in one big folder, so i can clip gradient maps + adjustments to it!). liquify tool to push the colors around a bit. STAY WITH ME I KNOW IT LOOKS STUPID RN I'M GOING SOMEWHERE WITH THIS

THEN: set it to add/glow (or the equivalent in ur drawing program), lower the opacity a bit, and apply a layer mask. then u can edit the mask with whatever tools you like to create rainbow highlights!!

in this case i'm mostly using the lasso fill tool to chip out little facets, but i've also done some soft airbrushing to bring in larger rainbow swirls in some areas. it's pretty subtle here, but you can see it better when i remove the gradient map that's above everything, since below i'm working in greyscale:

more granular rambling beneath the cut!

u could also just do this with a brush that has color jitter, but what i like about using layer masks for highlight/shading layers is how simple and reversible it makes everything. i can use whatever brushes i want, and erasing/redoing things is super low stakes, which is great when i often approach this stuff with a super trial-and-error approach.

example: have u ever thrown a gradient w multiple colors over an entire piece, set it to multiply etc, and then tried to erase it away to carve out shadows/highlights? it's super frustrating, bc it looks really good, but if u erase something and then change ur mind later, u basically would have to like. recreate the gradient in the area u want to cover up again. that's how i used to do things before figuring out layer masks!! but masking basically creates a version of this with INFINITE undo bc u can erase/re-place the base layer whenever u want.

anyway, back to rambling about this specific method:

i actually have TWO of these layers on this piece (one with the liquified swirls shown above, and another that's just a normal concentric circle gradient with much broader stripes) so i can vary the highlights easily as needed.

since i've basically hidden the rainbow pattern from myself, the colors in each brushstroke i make will kind of be a surprise, which isn't always great -- but easily fixable! for example, if i carve out a highlight and it turns out the rainbow pattern in that area is way too stripey, i can just switch from editing the mask to editing the main layer and blur that spot a bit.

also, this isn't a full explanation of the overall transparency effect in these screencaps! there's other layer stuff happening below the rainbow highlights, but the short version is i have all this character's body parts in different folders, each with their own lineart and background fill, and then the fill opacity is lowered and there's multiply layers clipped to that -- blah blah it's a whole thing. maybe i'll have a whole rundown on this on patreon later. uhhh i think that's it tho! i hope u get something useful out of this extremely specific thing i did lmao

[pearlfull]

must be love

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ SYNOPSIS: Batboys as boyfriends and their habits in a relationship! SFW + NSFW. 18+. 〝 What did you give me to make my heart beat out my chest? 〞 Batboys x Reader. ⋆˚࿔ A/N: Thanks for love on my last post! I TAKE REQUESTS! Sorta rusty, but I've missed writing sm chat

ᯓ★ DICK GRAYSON.

SFW

DICK GREW UP WITH BRUCE'S OLD WORLD MANNERS AND ALFRED'S TENDERNESS. It would be insulting to both of them if he didn't treat his partner following those examples of devotion.

Always has a hand on you. Thigh when he's driving, drawing circles on the inside with the other on the wheel, the small of your back as you're walking through a crowd to help you guide through the heat of bodies around you both, your hip when he's talking to someone else.

So there's no question when you both are out that you're his. Not because he clings, just because he's so unmistakably in love and he's loud about it. His hand finds yours without thinking, it's second nature to him. He laughs louder when you're happy, arm stays around your waist.

When you're not around? If someone tries their luck, any girl is met with a smile and he shakes his head sweetly, "Someone gorgeous has me."

Another thing about Dick is he shows up. Not just for you, the other people in your life. They're important to you, so they're important to them. He bribes your little brother with action figures and of course he'll drive your sister to soccer practice, and they can hit boba on the way home afterwards. Holds your dog during fireworks. Your roommate has a bad date and he's on the couch with you and gives his two cents from a guy's perspective and wait hey, he thinks Wally's her type?

"They like me, right?" His hair has stray pieces of sawdust from helping your dad fix the garage door, and there's a streak of grease staining his shirt. "I can't have your whole bloodline turning on me if I mess up babe."

He wants to find his way to fit into your world. And vice versa for sure!

Will bring you to the manor, and kiss the inside of your wrist and introduce you to Alfred like you're royalty. "This is (her. him. them.)"

Like that's all the explanation needed.

With the others, he lights up when they ask about you, or when you play cards with Jason and Tim, compliment and study Dami's drawings or make Bruce and Cass laugh.

When you go out with his friends, he'll drape his arm around you and grin when they tease you both.

At his apartment, he presses a kiss softly to your lips after you steal a sip of his beer and Roy will grin at the lovestruck expression on Dick's face before raising his brows at him, "Why don't you ever do that to me?"

Flowers are often. Will deliver them casually, too. Was 4th of July a worthy occasion for them? You don't know but you don't really mind.

NSFW

Munch city. DON'T YELL AT ME I'M RIGHT.

Lives for your pleasure, but there's nothing performative about it, he just gets off to how he can make you feel.

He takes his time, draws it out, and holds your hips down to keep you from squirming. "Where're you going, pretty?"

Literally moans into you, louder if you get louder, looks up at you as if he's seeing the face of God.

"So pretty like this, fuck."

Offers constantly. You'd honestly think he's ovulating. You're drying your hair as you step out the shower, and he's kissing the side of your neck sweetly, and tugging you to his bed murmuring something like, "C'mere. Wanna taste you real quick." It's not quick, you both know, but he's already kissing inside your thighs.

All hands and praise!!

Doesn't rush the after, he's walking you to the bathroom and when you're back he has a wet towel and an iced water with a straw.

ᯓ★ JASON TODD.

SFW

JASON DOESN'T LOVE LIKE HE WAS BORN INTO IT, BUT RATHER LIKE HE HAD TO LEARN HOW TO DO IT.

Clumsy, then careful!

He's practical, until he's not.

Until you mention wanting to see a local play, and when you get home he's bought tickets to four.

"This one's experimental." His finger points to the pamphlets he got when he drove down to the ticket office. "This one's about war. Feminist period piece. A musical." He gets quieter, and shrugs like it's not a big deal. "Thought we could make a thing of it."

He's practical until he's adopting a kitten with you, no question.

You find her outside your complex in a silver bin, tiny and shaking and definitely sick. He just sighs and peels off his jacket to wrap it up as you kiss his cheek. "Guess we're cat people now."

You find him on the couch with the cat on his chest and he's reading Wuthering Heights lowly to her. He doesn't look up, just rolls his eyes.

"Don't start, [Name.] She likes the voices."

He doesn't say I love you early. But he definitely acts like it. He'll pull you behind him when you cross the street quickly, text you "home safe?" before you've even made it to your driveway.

Observant would be putting it lightly. Your favorite shampoo and conditioner is in his shower and he keeps makeup wipes and guesses your lipgloss shade to have an extra in his pocket in case you misplace it.

Checks your apartment locks, and replaces them, "Sweetheart, these deadbolts were shit."

Learns all your favorite recipes.

He learns how you like your eggs how you want the edges of your sandwiches.

"You feed the people you love, right?" A beat. "And I love you."

Your favorite childhood meal. How your mom made it after your first breakup, a week later the aroma is filling your apartment, and he has sauce on his cheek and he's trying not to grin.

He loves to cook with you too! Jason'll open the jars, hold your hips while you're focused on stirring.

Annotates your favorite books. Watches your favorite movies. Without complaint. He wants to know you. And initially it was scary, but you're healing parts of him he didn't know were hurt, and he tries to do the same.

Tipsy Jason? The roughness practically melts out of him.

He drinks slow till you arrive, and when you do, he lights up and Roy laughs and shakes his head as Jay pulls you into his lap with his drink still in hand, kissing your shoulder.

You tease him for being clingy, but the next he's murmuring into your hair, "Don't get how someone like you gets to be with me."

NSFW

Needs to see your eyes, and hear you fall apart because of him.

"C'mon, sweetheart. Wanna see those pretty eyes while I fuck you."

Whines when you moan his name, and ruts harder when you beg.

If you try and stay quiet, he slows down and looks at you like he's got every bit of time on his hands. "Say it again, want that voice, baby."

ᯓ★ TIM DRAKE.

SFW

DESPITE EVERYTHING, TIM IS CONSISTENT! He always makes time for you, and doesn't brag about it, doesn't rearrange his schedule in front of you.

"I'll be in your neighborhood in ten minutes." You raise your voice to protest, but he's already lacing up his shoes.

Spoiled would be an understatement, but to Tim? It's bare minimum, don't even think twice about it.

He'll subtly match outfits with you. Red tie, to compliment your gloss. Soft grey if you choose blue. Enough so when pap photos come out later, you'll notice.

"You do that on purpose?"

"We look good."

Places for dates are quiet when you go out: old jazz bars, private late night planetarium tours.

When he picks you up, the smoke curls in the air like the music and he's gotten you the booth in the corner next to the drums.

You also go to the aquarium, the whole place is closed to the public. You swing his hand as it's laced into yours, eyes glittering and you can tell he's trying not to laugh at your excitement. “How did you manage this?”

He just shrugs, and kisses your cheek. “I had a favor owed. Small bribe. You said you used to come here with your mom.”

You almost melt into the floor.

He loves your perfume! In a really sweet way.

Will steal your scarf in the winter to wear to work. Buries his face into your shoulder when he hugs you.

Eventually purchases a travel size of your signature scent for himself to help remind him of home when he's away.

He keeps a photo of you in his wallet, tucked behind his ID. Steph teases him for it, claims he acts like he's a soldier at war carrying a picture of his wife.

It happens on accident that you find it, you're sitting on your couch on a Sunday, your legs draped across his lap, he's rifling through it to find a gift card that has thirty more bucks on it. He flips through it, one hand on your waist, thumb tracing lazy circles over your hip bone.

There's a flash of photo paper and you blink. "Go back."

He raises his brows, freezing, "What?"

You pluck it from his hands, thumbing it through yourself and there it is. A tiny picture of you. He must've printed it himself, but you remember when it was taken. You, with a matcha latte and a goofy grin pointing to a billboard behind you with Tim's face on it.

You laugh, but tuck it back in. "You keep this in your wallet?"

"Yeah." His voice is soft, but his eyes crinkle with amusement.

"Why?"

"Because it's the one I always liked. Makes me laugh. You look pretty and like soft. And mine."

You stare at him a moment too long, and he rolls his eyes, "Okay, I sound insane."

"Nope."

Also nights in?? A great break for Tim. He gets overwhelmed easily and when he comes home he wants something real and sometimes that's you playing Mario Kart on his floor in his pajama bottoms.

Or decorating cookies shaped like lopsided bats.

You let him put his armor down, literally and figuratively.

NSFW

He works from beneath you!!! Controlled and deep thrusts, eyes locked on yours and studying the way your chin tilts and nose scrunches when he hits the right spot.

His hands are everywhere, but your hips are his favorite, rolling them in slow circles.

"That's it," "Just like that, fuck."

He also loves seeing you completely bent over sorry. Your back arched, legs shaking and your winded breath every time he pushes it in deeper.

Kissing your shoulder. Groaning against your back, he'll make you look at him

[dontpulloutman]

7 minutes of lewis & yn talking about each other

singer!yn x lewis pullman (more) a/n: i have maybe 2 more singer!yn wips + 1 owen taylor wip. i'm super busy this week so i'm not sure when i can post those uhhh pls be patient w me ty ily i hope u like this

The video begins with the oldest; it’s Lew seated in an interview with Jay and Monica to promote Top Gun: Maverick. “So, it’s safe to assume that all the flight training and exercise needed to stay in shape must take many hours. Who are your favorite artists to jam out and work out to?”

Lewis can’t hide the way his lips quirk, “Recently, I’ve been listening to a lot of Y/N.”

From the corner of his eye, he can see the way Monica and Jay look at him. Knowing glints in their gazes.

“Really?” the interview asks, “I didn’t expect that.”

“No, yeah. She’s great.” Lewis smiles.

“She’s really great,” Jay adds. Monica tries to subtly hide her smile behind her hand.

“I jam out to Bad Blood on the treadmill.” Lewis comments, cheeky smile plastered on his face before Monica changes the topic.

“Muses & Anecdotes, congratulations on the new album!” The radio talkshow host exclaims. Seated across from him, you smile. “Thank you so much!”

“It’s doing really well. All thirteen tracks on Billboard’s Top 20. How does it feel?”

“It feels amazing. I had some doubts about releasing an album entirely on my own again, but I was encouraged by some very close friends and I decided, ‘Hey, why not?’. Luckily, it’s working out so far.”

“It’s more than just ‘working out.” The host teases, and you let out a little laugh. “So, speaking of ‘muses & anecdotes’, can we perhaps have an explanation to what ‘muses’ and what ‘anecdotes’ mean? Not the Merriam-Webster definition, but the YN LN definition.”

You let out another laugh. Letting out a hum, you think of how to phrase your answer.

“When I first started to conceptualize the album, I knew that it would encompass thoughts and feelings of certain events over the course of six years. Anecdotes quite literally means an account of an event that is… amusing or interesting.”

“And what does ‘muses’ mean to YN LN?”

The host eyes you, you catch the humor on their face.

“You know what it means, Rich.”

“I don’t! Promise!” the host is laughing.

“All of the songs in this album are inspired by and dedicated to a special person in my life.”

“That person being…?”

“Oh, stop it," you joke with a roll of your eyes.

The next clip is of a red-carpet interview for the premiere of Thunderbolts. Front and center of the video, Lewis is talking into a mic, he’s grinning at the question the interviewer asked him.

“My muse is here,” he’s grinning, head turning quickly to the side, down the aisle where you’re engaged in another interview of your own.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” the interviewer starts, “But is this your first red carpet together?”

“Yes, it is,” Lewis confirms, “This is… Coming to an event like this has been something we’ve always wanted to do together, but it never really worked out in the past. I’m just happy we’ve finally done it.”

“How do you think YN will react to The Sentry?”

“Oh, I think she’ll hate him. I sent her pics during filming. She absolutely hated the hair. She’s in love with the Void, though.” Lew lets out a small laugh, mind recalling the texts you sent him when the trailer released.

“That was unexpected!”

Lewis gives a wink to the camera, “She loves his hair more.”

“I’m so excited. I’m such a huge fan of everybody, and Flo is one of my closest friends in Hollywood. I just — I can’t wait to see the whole film!” The next clip is YN on the same red carpet, with the same interviewer.

“And of course, you’re here for Lewis too?”

“Yes, of course,” you cut yourself off, turning your head to look for him, “Where is he? — Oh, there.” You see him ahead of you in the press line, talking to another interviewer. “I told him the reason I came today is to see the Void. I love his hair.”

“Lewis told us awhile ago. Not a fan of the blonde?”

“I am! Just… I love the Void more.”

The next clip is a little blurry, taken under the dim lights of your most recent concert. The camera is focused on the stage, where you’re dancing to ‘Dress’.

I woke up just in time, now I wake up by your side

My hands shake, I can't explain this ah, ha, ha, ha

Say my name and everything just stops

The camera turns to where Lewis is watching you from the VIP tent, it zooms in on his face, his smile, and how he whispers your name, before the beat starts up again.

I don't want you like a best friend

Only bought this dress so you could take it off

Take it off

“I feel so lucky to know her.”

The final clip is from a Zoom interview, Lewis is leaned toward the camera of his laptop, a lazy smile on his lips, “She’s my best friend, my biggest supporter.” This whole press junket, ever since the two of you went public with your relationship, questions about your relationship never fails to be brought up at least once. He never gets tired of talking about you.

Comments (274)

ally_browne PARENTS

falsedg0dz yn cant stop yapping abt lewis she released bonus tracks of muses n anecdotes OUT OF FUCKIN NOWHERE???

lewpulledman this is the first celeb couple where i feel like they really like each other

bobonboard girlie cant stop singing abt how in love and horny they r for one another

l0vedstory hard launching at 6 years …. we couldve had 6 yrs of them doing this

ynlewtruther I CANT STOP THINKING ABOUT YN’S ROLLING STONE INTERVIEW

millsjules wait why? ynlewtruther she wrote some songs at lewis’s montana place and she said in the interview that she realized he liked her back when she walked in on him playing “snap out of it” by arctic monkeys on the drums dfhgjkdfhg milesjules WHAT???? thats hilarious

voidedyn yn … lewis …. me …. sabrina carpenter paris juno position

[urdreamydoodles]

Hi hi!! Hope your day’s going well!!

I adore the krakoa headcanons you have for the x-men, how willing would you be to do something similar for mcu characters?? Idk if there’s an equivalent though, if not it’s no problem ❤️

MCU CHARACTERS X FEM!READER

A year after your death, you are resurrected and reunited with your lover

Characters: Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Bruce Banner, Clint Barton, Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson, Peter Parker (Tom H.), Stephen Strange, Thor Odinson, Loki Laufeyson, T'Challa, Marc Spector, Steven Grant, Jake Lockley, Scott Lang, Wade Wilson, Logan Howlett, Matt Murdock, Frank Castle, Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter, Wanda Maximoff, Pietro Maximoff & Erik Lehnsherr

Requests are reopened since I'm going to have surgery for my scoliosis...yes, it's bad news, it's a major operation, so I need your requests to feel better. PLEASE SEND ME REQUEST. I don't have surgery for another four months so I have plenty of time since I'm at home! I can't wait to see all your ideas, I LOVE YOU <3

Tony Stark

- Tony Stark, the man who could build a new world with his hands but could not stop them from shaking when they lost you. He spent a year in ruins, laughing too loudly at parties that could not fill the silence you left behind, drowning in half-finished projects where your ghost lingered in the curve of every wire. He never stopped talking about you—not to his friends, not to himself, not to the night. You were the equation he could not solve, the loss he could not engineer his way out of.

- When he sees you again, standing in the flickering light of his workshop, the wrench in his hand slips, clattering to the floor. He doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe. His mind, sharp as ever, gives him ten different explanations, each more impossible than the last, but his heart—his battered, grieving heart—gives him only one. “Tell me I’m dreaming,” he says, voice hoarse, because the alternative is something he cannot afford to believe.

- And then you speak, and the walls he built to keep himself from shattering crumble in an instant. He is across the room before he knows it, hands gripping your arms, your face, tracing the proof of you. The ache in his chest is unbearable, but not from pain—it is the sheer weight of having you again. “They told me I was crazy,” he murmurs against your lips, against your skin. “Guess they were right.”

- You are back, but time has moved without you, carving deeper lines into Tony’s face, dulling the arrogance that once carried him like armor. He watches you like you might disappear again, fingers always brushing your wrist, your hip, the pulse at your throat. He doesn’t sleep much—he never did—but now, when you wake in the night, he is already awake, watching the rise and fall of your breath as if it is the only thing tethering him to reality.

- He brings you everywhere, makes no excuses for it. “My ghost, my rules,” he says when someone questions it. He builds new suits and doesn’t let you out of his sight, not when danger is near, not when a single misstep could take you away again. He has never been a man who believed in second chances, but for you, he will believe in anything.

- The world thinks he is Iron Man, but you know the truth: Tony Stark is just a man who loved and lost and refused to let death win. He holds you like a miracle, like proof that he was right to fight for the impossible. And for the first time in a long time, he is not afraid.

Steve Rogers

- Steve Rogers has always known loss—has carried it like a second skin, worn it like a name he could never leave behind. But losing you was different. It was not the cold silence of the ice, nor the distant ache of time slipping through his fingers. It was immediate, brutal. It was your blood on his hands, your last breath against his cheek. A year passed, and he carried on because that was what he did, because that was what you would have wanted. But he stopped looking at sunsets. Stopped drinking coffee the way you used to make it. Stopped believing that the world could ever feel warm again.

- When he sees you again, standing in the doorway of the safe house, the shield strapped to his back feels heavier than ever. His breath catches, his heart stumbles, and for a moment, he wonders if this is some cruel trick played by an enemy who knows exactly where to cut him open. But then your lips part, and you say his name, and the sound of it is like the first breath after drowning.

- He moves toward you slowly, hesitantly, as if one wrong step will shatter the illusion. His hands hover over your face, your shoulders, trembling with the unbearable need to touch, to feel, to know. And when you don’t disappear, when you are warm and real beneath his fingers, something inside him breaks. His arms crush you to him, his breath shaking as he buries his face in your hair. He is crying, but he doesn’t care. “I held you,” he whispers. “I held you.”

- After that, he does not let you go. The world calls him Captain America, but to you, he is just Steve—the man who wakes up in the middle of the night just to press his forehead against yours, the man whose grip tightens every time you reach for his hand, as if to reassure himself that you are not a dream. He does not know how to make peace with this miracle, so he does not try. He simply loves you harder, holds you closer, refuses to waste a second of the time he was so cruelly robbed of.

- He is more protective now, but it is not the suffocating kind. It is the quiet, steadfast kind, the way he always positions himself between you and an open door, the way he memorizes the sound of your breathing while you sleep. He does not speak of the past year unless you ask, but when you do, the grief in his eyes is something ancient, something that will never fully fade.

- Steve Rogers has always carried the weight of the world, but with you beside him, it is lighter. You are proof that even after all the battles, all the sacrifices, the universe still has kindness left to give. And he will spend the rest of his life earning it.

Natasha Romanoff

- Natasha Romanoff has survived on borrowed time for as long as she can remember. She has lost, she has bled, she has walked away from battlefields without looking back. But losing you was different. It was the one wound that did not heal, the one loss she could not turn into fuel. She did not cry. Did not speak of you. She simply moved forward, faster, harder, with reckless abandon—because if she slowed down, even for a second, she would have to feel the hollow space you left behind.

- When she sees you again, standing in the shadows of a dimly lit alley, her knife is in her hand before she even registers what she is seeing. Her body reacts the way it was trained to, but her heart—her traitorous, fragile heart—stutters in her chest. “No,” she breathes, shaking her head as if denying it will make it any less real. “No, I buried you.”

- And then you step closer, into the light, and she sees the familiar curve of your smile, the warmth in your eyes. She drops the knife. It clatters against the pavement, forgotten, as she crosses the space between you in two strides, her hands fisting in the fabric of your jacket. Her lips crash against yours, desperate, searching, as if she can taste the truth in the way you breathe against her mouth.

- After that, she is different. Softer, in ways only you will ever see. She touches you constantly—not in fear, but in reverence. A hand at the small of your back, fingers trailing over your wrist, knuckles brushing against yours as if reminding herself that you are here. The world may question, but Natasha has never cared for the world's judgment. You are hers, and she is yours, and that is all that matters.

- She does not let you fight alone anymore. Not because she doubts your strength, but because she refuses to feel that kind of loss again. She watches you when you sleep, when you move through a room, when you laugh. She memorizes the details she once took for granted—the exact color of your eyes in the morning light, the rhythm of your voice when you call her name.

- Natasha Romanoff has spent a lifetime making peace with ghosts, but you are not one. You are flesh and blood, a heartbeat beneath her palm, a warmth she never thought she would feel again. And this time, she will not let you go.

Bruce Banner

- Grief is not an emotion Bruce Banner can afford. He has spent a lifetime suppressing, locking away the parts of himself that feel too deeply, because feeling too much is dangerous, and losing you nearly ended the world. The Hulk roared in agony that day, the earth itself trembling beneath his wrath, but even in his most furious state, even as he destroyed everything in his path, you were gone. And no amount of strength, no amount of science, could bring you back.

- He stopped fighting after that. Retreated. Isolated himself in a place where no one could see the way his hands trembled when they weren’t balled into fists, where no one could hear him whisper your name like a prayer, a question, a plea. He stopped shifting into the Hulk—not because he was afraid, but because the monster within him had nothing left to fight for. There was only silence, only the ghost of your touch, only the unbearable weight of having lived when you did not.

- So when you return, standing before him in the quiet of his lab, he does not react at first. His mind, trained to doubt, to question, to disassemble and understand, tells him it cannot be real. That the chemicals in his brain are firing incorrectly, that his grief has finally shattered him in a way no transformation ever could. But then you say his name, and it is not just sound—it is gravity, it is a force pulling him from the abyss.

- He crosses the room in a single breath, hands hovering over your face, your shoulders, your waist, unable to trust his own touch. He is afraid to break you, afraid to break himself. And then your fingers slip into his, grounding him, reminding him that this is not a hallucination, not a cruel trick of his subconscious. You are warm, real, here. And just like that, the weight he has carried for a year crumbles to dust.

- After that, he does not leave your side. He watches you sleep, not because he doubts, but because he cannot waste another second of the time he was so certain he had lost. He builds new defenses, new protections, because if death could not keep you, then neither will any enemy foolish enough to try. He teaches himself to trust happiness again, to allow himself to feel, because with you beside him, it is no longer a danger—it is a gift.

- Bruce Banner has always been afraid of his own power, but with you, he is not afraid. He is a man, not just a monster, and for the first time in a long time, he believes in the possibility of a future. A future where he is not alone. A future where he is not running. A future where you, against all odds, are still his.

Clint Barton

- Clint Barton has never been one to dwell. The life he leads does not allow for it—grief is a luxury, mourning a weakness, and the only way to survive is to keep moving. But when he held you in his arms, felt the last shudder of breath against his skin, something inside him shattered. And he did not put the pieces back together. He let them fall, let them burn, let the silence swallow him whole.

- The others saw him continue—heard his sharp wit, watched him loose arrows with deadly precision, saw the same easy smirk that had always been there. But they did not see the empty spaces where you used to be. Did not see the way he avoided the places you had loved, the way he drank in solitude, the way his hands curled into fists whenever someone mentioned your name.

- So when you return—when you step into the dim light of his hideout, when your voice cuts through the silence he has lived in for a year—he does not believe it. He grips the bow at his side, tension in every muscle, because this is a trick, a trap, an illusion designed to destroy him completely. But then you move closer, and the way you look at him—the way only you ever have—makes the doubt in his mind fracture.

- And then he is there, hands gripping your waist, your arms, his forehead pressed to yours as he exhales a breath he did not know he had been holding. He does not ask how, does not ask why. He only pulls you closer, lets himself collapse into the only thing that has ever truly felt like home. His fingers are tight against your skin, unwilling to let go, unwilling to lose you a second time.

- After that, he is different. Lighter, in ways only you will notice. He is still Clint—still sharp, still reckless, still throwing himself into danger without hesitation—but there is a warmth now, a flicker of something that had long been extinguished. He touches you constantly—not in fear, but in reassurance. His hand on the small of your back, his fingers brushing against yours, a quiet, wordless promise that he will not take a second of this for granted.

- Clint Barton has always been a survivor, but he did not truly live until you returned. And now, with you beside him, he has no intention of losing that again. He is yours, wholly and completely, and this time, no force in the universe will take you from him.

Bucky Barnes

- Bucky Barnes knows the taste of loss better than most. He has drowned in it, clawed his way through decades of it, watched everyone he has ever loved slip through his fingers like sand. But losing you was different. Losing you was not the slow, creeping erosion of time. It was a blade to the gut, a wound that never closed, an ache that settled deep in his bones and refused to let go.

- He did not grieve the way others did. He did not cry, did not rage, did not seek solace in memories. He simply stopped. Stopped talking, stopped trying, stopped allowing himself to feel anything at all. Because feeling meant acknowledging the gaping wound your absence had left behind, and that was not something he could survive.

- So when he sees you again, standing in the doorway of his apartment, he does not move. Does not breathe. His mind—trained to expect deception, to anticipate betrayal—tells him this is a trick. But then you step forward, and the way your eyes soften when they meet his, the way your lips part in a quiet whisper of his name, makes the world tilt beneath his feet.

- And then he is there, crossing the space between you with the kind of desperation that only comes from losing something you thought was gone forever. His hands tremble as they frame your face, his breath shuddering as he drinks in the impossible reality of you. He does not trust words, does not trust his voice to hold steady, so he simply presses his forehead to yours, breathing you in, grounding himself in the proof of your existence.

- After that, he does not let you go. He does not speak of the past year, does not tell you how empty it was, how he spent every night staring at the ceiling, waiting for sleep that never came. He only shows you in the way he touches you, in the way he holds you closer at night, in the way his fingers linger on yours as if afraid you might vanish again.

- Bucky Barnes has spent a lifetime being taken, being controlled, being used. But you are the one thing that was his, the one thing that was real, and now that you are here, he will fight for you with everything he has. You are his salvation, his anchor, his second chance at something he never thought he deserved. And this time, he is never letting go.

Sam Wilson

- Grief is a weight Sam Wilson carries well, but carrying it does not mean it is light. It sits in his chest, heavy and unmoving, an ache that never quite fades. Losing you was not a clean wound—it was jagged, raw, a battlefield farewell written in blood and breathless whispers. He held you, watched the life slip from your eyes, and still, somehow, he had to stand up. He had to keep fighting. Because that’s what you would have done. That’s what you would want.

- But wanting and doing are not the same thing. He laughed in public, told stories that made others grin, carried himself with the same easy confidence. But alone? Alone, it was different. He spoke to you sometimes when the night was too quiet, when the wind sounded too much like your voice. He ran until his lungs burned, trying to chase the memory of you, knowing he never really could.

- So when you stand before him, alive, breathing, real, the world does not feel like the one he left behind. His first instinct is denial—a trick, an illusion, a cruel joke played by something with too much power and not enough mercy. But you look at him, and there’s something there, something he recognizes too well. Love. History. You. And suddenly, the weight in his chest is gone.

- He moves before he can think. One step, then two, then his arms are around you, his head buried in your shoulder, a shuddering breath breaking from his lips. His grip is tight—too tight, maybe—but he doesn’t care. He needs to feel you, needs to know this isn’t a dream he’ll wake from. He says your name like it’s the only word he remembers, his voice thick with everything he couldn’t say when you were gone.

- After that, Sam is different. Lighter, freer. He still fights, still leads, still carries the burdens of the world on his back—but he does it with you at his side, and that changes everything. He touches you constantly, a hand on your back, fingers brushing against yours, small, quiet reassurances that you are here, that he did not imagine this.

- Sam Wilson has lost many things. He has seen friends fall, watched the world tear itself apart. But this? This is something he never thought he’d get back. And now that he has you, he swears to himself—he’s not losing you again. Not now. Not ever.

Peter Parker (Tom Holland)

- Peter Parker does not know how to exist in a world where you do not. The pain is not sharp, not a clean wound he can stitch together with time. It is suffocating. Slow. A weight pressing down on him, stealing the air from his lungs, making every step feel heavier than the last. He was holding you, talking to you, and then you were just… gone. And nothing he did, no amount of strength, no web-slinging through the city, no late-night patrols could change that.

- He keeps going. He has to. That’s what Spider-Man does. That’s what you would have wanted. But some nights, when he is alone, when the mask is off and the world is quiet, he feels like a boy again—small, lost, powerless. He whispers apologies into the dark, tracing the memory of your touch, trying to pretend he still remembers exactly what your voice sounded like. Because he’s terrified he’s forgetting.

- And then, one day, you are there. Standing in the shadow of a flickering streetlamp, watching him with the same eyes he never thought he’d see again. At first, he doesn’t move. He can’t. His brain refuses to process it, refuses to accept this impossible, beautiful reality. And then you smile—small, hesitant, you—and he breaks.

- He crashes into you, arms wrapping around you so tightly it almost hurts. His breath stutters, hands shaking as they press against your skin, your hair, anything that proves you are real. “You—” His voice cracks. “You died.” And it’s not an accusation. It’s a question, a plea, a broken whisper of disbelief. But you are warm, solid, here, and he holds onto that with everything he has.

- After that, Peter is clingy. He doesn’t mean to be, but he is. His fingers find yours without thinking, his arm curls around your waist at every opportunity, his webbing pulls you to him when you step too far away. He is afraid—afraid this is temporary, afraid that one day he’ll wake up and you’ll be gone again. But he also smiles more, laughs louder, lives in a way he hasn’t since he lost you.

- Peter Parker has lost so much. But this? This is a miracle. And Peter—Peter is going to make sure he cherishes every single second of it. Because this time, he has you. And that? That is everything.

Stephen Strange

- Stephen Strange is no stranger to loss. He has lived through pain, through heartbreak, through the destruction of things he once believed unshakable. But losing you—that was something else entirely. That was not just loss. That was devastation. It was the kind of pain that settled into his bones, that made the world feel quieter, colder, less.

- He did not weep. Did not rage. Did not crumble beneath the weight of it. Instead, he buried himself in his work, in his magic, in the relentless pursuit of something—anything—that could fill the void you left behind. He scoured the multiverse, searching for answers, but found only silence. Death, it seemed, was absolute. Even for you.

- So when you stand before him, alive, whole, untouched by the grave, he does not react at first. His hands twitch at his sides, eyes sharp, mind racing through a thousand possibilities, a thousand explanations. This must be a trick, a deception, some cruel game played by forces beyond his understanding. But then you speak his name, and the way you say it—the way only you say it—breaks him.

- He crosses the room in three steps, hands cupping your face, searching for any sign of illusion. But there is none. There is only warmth, only life, only you. His breath stutters, his fingers tighten, and for the first time in a long, long time, Stephen Strange allows himself to feel. His lips crash against yours, desperate, searching, as if trying to convince himself that this moment is not slipping through his fingers.

- After that, he is possessive. Not in a way that is suffocating, but in a way that is unmistakable. His cloak wraps around you when you are cold, his hands find yours beneath temple robes, his magic lingers in the air around you like a silent guardian. He does not say it—not outright, not often—but you know. You have always known. He cannot lose you again. He will not.

- Stephen Strange has faced the impossible, has bent time and reality to his will. But this? This is the greatest miracle of all. And he, a man who once scoffed at faith, finds himself believing in something again. Because if the universe had any mercy, any kindness at all, it would let him keep you. And this time, he will fight for that with everything he has.

Thor Odinson

- Grief and gods have never mixed well. Mortals mourn with time, with rituals, with whispered prayers to the sky. But Thor? Thor does not know how to grieve in a way that does not tear the world apart. He held you as you died, cradled you against his chest, his hands helpless against the tide of fate. The sky wept with him that day—thunder cracking, the heavens splitting open in rage, the storm inside him unfurling with no battle left to fight.

- He left Earth after that. It was too loud, too full of life, too painfully real in your absence. He searched for answers in the stars, in old myths and forgotten magic, in the whispered promises of gods who had lost more than he had. But the truth was simple: not even the might of Thor, not even the power of Asgard, could bring back the one thing he truly wanted. So he drank, and he fought, and he laughed too loudly to hide the fact that he was breaking.

- And then, one day, he turns, and you are there. Standing in the golden light of the Bifrost, impossibly, beautifully alive. His breath catches in his throat, Mjolnir slipping from his fingers, his entire body frozen between disbelief and desperate hope. “This is a trick,” he says, but his voice is hoarse, unsteady, as if saying the words out loud might make them false. But then you smile, and he is undone.

- He crosses the space between you in an instant, crushing you against him with a force that nearly knocks the breath from your lungs. His hands tangle in your hair, his forehead pressing against yours, and his chest heaves with something between laughter and a sob. “You have returned to me,” he whispers, reverence in every syllable. And then he is kissing you, fierce and unrelenting, as if proving to himself that this is not some cruel jest of fate.

- After that, Thor does not let you go. Not truly. His arm is always around your waist, his hand always at the small of your back, his eyes watching you as if you might disappear the moment he looks away. He tells you, constantly, in grand declarations and quiet murmurs, how much he loves you, how he will never lose you again. You are his greatest treasure, more precious than any throne, any kingdom, any power the cosmos could offer.

- The God of Thunder has lost much—his home, his family, pieces of himself that may never fully return. But you—you are here, in his arms, alive once more. And Thor, a warrior who has fought countless battles, swears that he will fight against gods and monsters alike to keep you at his side.

Loki Laufeyson

- Loki knows loss better than he knows himself. He has lost love, trust, family. But losing you—that was different. That was a wound he could not charm away with silver-tongued words, a pain he could not outwit or outmaneuver. You died in his arms, your fingers curling weakly around his wrist as the light in your eyes faded. And for the first time in his life, Loki Laufeyson was powerless.

- He did not rage. He did not scream. Instead, he withdrew, wrapping himself in silence and solitude, retreating into the shadows where grief could not be seen. The world continued without you, and he played his part well—smirking, deceiving, spinning tales as if he were not hollow inside. But in the quiet moments, when no one was looking, he traced the ghost of your touch on his skin and whispered your name like a prayer.

- So when he sees you again, standing before him in the flickering candlelight of some forgotten sanctuary, he does not react—not at first. His body stills, his breath catches, and his mind races through every possibility, every cruel illusion that could explain this. But then you speak his name, soft and familiar, and something in him shatters.

- He reaches for you hesitantly, his fingers brushing over your cheek as if expecting you to dissolve beneath his touch. And when you do not—when you are warm, and real, and here—a sharp breath leaves his lips, and he pulls you against him with all the desperation of a man drowning. His grip is tight, unyielding, as if trying to convince himself that you will not be stolen from him again.

- After that, Loki is different. Not softer, not weaker—if anything, he is more dangerous, more cunning, more willing to do anything to ensure you remain by his side. He keeps you close, always within reach, his sharp wit reserved for those who dare to threaten what is his. There is no force in the universe he fears, no power he will not challenge, if it means keeping you safe.

- Loki Laufeyson has never believed in fate, in mercy, in second chances. But you? You are proof that even the most broken of men can find something worth living for. And this time, he will not lose you. Not to death. Not to gods. Not to anything.

T’Challa

- T’Challa was a king before he was a man, a warrior before he was a lover. But you—you—were the one thing that belonged solely to him. With you, he was not a ruler, not the Black Panther, not the protector of a nation. He was simply a man in love. And then, in a single moment, in the chaos of war, you were gone. And he—T’Challa, the unshakable, the wise, the just—fell to his knees, holding you as the life slipped from your body.

- He did not mourn in ways the world could see. There were no public displays of grief, no speeches of loss. He carried the weight of your death in silence, bearing it with the same quiet dignity that he bore every burden. But in the stillness of his chambers, when no one was watching, he let the sorrow take him. He traced the last place he had held you, whispered your name to the night, and wondered if he would ever learn to breathe without you.

- So when he sees you again, standing beneath the glow of Wakanda’s golden lights, his heart stops. His breath catches. And for a moment, he is afraid to move—to hope. But you step forward, your eyes locking onto his, and everything else ceases to matter. The world falls away, and there is only you.

- He crosses the distance between you in a single step, his hands cupping your face with reverence, with disbelief, with a depth of emotion he has never let himself show before. He does not ask how or why. He only whispers, “My love,” as if speaking the words aloud will make them real. And then he kisses you—slow, deep, a promise, a prayer, a thousand unspoken words pressed into your skin.

- After that, T’Challa is your shadow, your shield, your unwavering protector. He does not smother you—he respects you too much for that—but he watches, always. His fingers linger against yours in quiet moments, his gaze softens whenever you speak, and when he holds you at night, it is with the quiet, unyielding certainty that he will never let go again.

- T’Challa has lost many things—his father, his home, pieces of himself in battles fought for the greater good. But this? This is something sacred. And a king who has been given back his heart will protect it with everything he has.

Marc Spector

- Marc Spector has never been good at losing people. He has lost too much, buried too many, carried ghosts in the hollows of his ribs and the shadows of his mind. But losing you—watching you die in his arms, feeling your body grow cold as his own blood soaked into the ground—was something else entirely. It didn’t break him. It obliterated him.

- He stopped pretending after that. Stopped holding himself together, stopped fighting for anything beyond survival. He threw himself into missions with reckless abandon, took every fight as if he was begging for someone to land a fatal hit. He couldn’t sleep in your bed, couldn’t bear to hear your name spoken aloud. He tried—Khonshu knows, he tried—to find a way to bring you back. Bargained with gods, hunted down forbidden magic, but nothing, nothing, worked. So he gave up. He accepted that this was his punishment, his curse, to keep losing the things he loved until there was nothing left of him.

- And then—then—you were there. Standing in the doorway, alive, whole, looking at him like you weren’t a phantom haunting his grief. He didn’t move at first, didn’t breathe, convinced you were another trick of his fractured mind. But then you spoke—soft, hesitant, like you weren’t sure if he would even want you back. And the moment your voice reached him, Marc snapped.

- He was on you in an instant, his hands on your face, your shoulders, your arms—anywhere he could touch, anywhere he could convince himself you were real. “Tell me I’m not dreaming,” he whispered, voice shaking, breath unsteady. And when you smiled, when you nodded, he kissed you—desperate, bruising, like a man drowning who had finally found air.

- After that, Marc is different. Not softer, not gentler—he has never been those things—but determined. He refuses to let you out of his sight for too long, refuses to take a single moment for granted. The nightmares don’t go away—sometimes he wakes up reaching for you, convinced he’s lost you all over again—but you are always there, grounding him, reminding him that miracles exist.

- He still fights, still follows the path Khonshu carved for him, but now, there’s something else driving him. Not vengeance. Not guilt. You. You, alive and breathing, laughing in the golden light of morning, rolling your eyes when he gets in one of his moods. And if he has to fight every god, every monster, every force in the universe to keep you by his side? So be it.

Steven Grant

- Grief is a lonely thing. And for Steven, it was lonelier than most. He didn’t have Marc’s rage or Jake’s cold detachment—he just had absence, an empty space beside him where you used to be. You had been his bright thing, his sunbeam, the warmth in his life he never thought he deserved. And then, in a moment of violence and blood, you were gone.

- The flat was too quiet after that. He still made tea for two, still caught himself turning to tell you something, still found little reminders of you everywhere. Your books on the shelf. Your perfume lingering in the air. A sweater you’d stolen from him, draped over the back of a chair. He couldn’t let go, couldn’t move—just existed, stumbling through the days with a polite smile and eyes that held too much grief.

- And then, one evening, as he shuffled into the flat with the exhaustion of another day spent pretending he was okay, he saw you. Standing there, real as anything, watching him with that soft, hesitant look you always had when you weren’t sure how he’d react. He didn’t even think. Didn’t question. Just dropped whatever was in his hands and ran to you.

- “Oh, love,” he breathed, his voice cracking as he cupped your face, pressing his forehead to yours. He was crying—of course he was crying—but he didn’t care, didn’t even try to stop. “I—I thought—oh God, I thought I lost you.” His hands trembled as he touched you, as if afraid you might disappear if he wasn’t careful. But you didn’t disappear. You were here. And when you kissed him—gentle, reassuring—he let out a broken, disbelieving laugh.

- After that, Steven becomes more himself again. The light comes back into his eyes, the warmth into his voice. He tells you every day how much he loves you, how grateful he is that you came back. He holds you for hours sometimes, murmuring little things against your skin, afraid that if he lets go, the universe will take you away again.

- You are his miracle, his impossible, wonderful second chance. And Steven, the man who never thought he was enough, now knows one thing with absolute certainty—he will never take you for granted again.

Jake Lockley

- Jake doesn’t grieve the way others do. He doesn’t sit in sorrow, doesn’t cry himself to sleep. He compartmentalizes, shoves it all into a locked box in the back of his mind and throws away the key. When you died, he didn’t break down. He didn’t scream. He just acted. Found the ones responsible. Made them pay. Made everyone pay.

- He convinced himself that was enough. That revenge was all he had left to give you. But when the dust settled, when the blood was washed from his hands, there was nothing. Just an emptiness so vast it threatened to swallow him whole. He became a ghost, slipping through the world unnoticed, unseen. He only spoke when necessary, only acted when called upon. If Marc and Steven noticed how much darker he’d become, they didn’t say anything.

- And then—then—you were there. Sitting in the backseat of his car like you belonged there, like you hadn’t died in his arms a year ago. He slammed on the brakes so hard the tires screeched, his pulse roaring in his ears. He didn’t turn around at first. Couldn’t. His hands gripped the steering wheel like a vice, his knuckles white with tension. “Not funny,” he rasped, his voice low, dangerous. “Not a game I wanna play.”

- “It’s not a trick, Jake,” you whispered. And that was all it took. He turned, his breath catching as he finally let himself look. Let himself believe. And the moment he did, something inside him snapped. He surged toward you, pulling you into his arms with a desperation he rarely let himself show. His face buried in your neck, his breath shaky and uneven, his body trembling as if the entire world had just shifted beneath his feet.

- After that, Jake is ruthless about keeping you safe. He doesn’t care how you came back—only that you did, and that nothing will take you from him again. He’s always watching, always waiting, always a step ahead of any potential threat. He doesn’t say it out loud, but it’s in the way he tucks you close against him in crowds, in the way his fingers ghost over your pulse like he’s memorizing it.

- Jake Lockley is not a good man. He never claimed to be. But you—you are the one thing that makes him want to be. And if death couldn’t keep you from him, nothing else will either.

Scott Lang

- Scott never truly believed in happy endings, but he believed in you. He believed in the way your laughter could turn an ordinary day into something extraordinary, the way your hand in his made him feel like maybe—just maybe—he was enough. Losing you shattered him in ways he didn’t even know were possible. You died in his arms, your blood on his hands, and in that moment, he stopped believing in miracles.

- He tried to hold it together for Cassie. He smiled, told jokes, did his best to pretend he was okay. But he wasn’t. His apartment felt too big without you, the bed too cold. He found himself talking to the empty air, half-expecting you to answer. The worst part was the moments right before he woke up, when his brain still tricked him into thinking you were next to him, breathing softly in sleep. And then he’d open his eyes and reality would sink in like a knife to the gut.

- When he sees you again, it’s like the universe plays a cruel trick on him. He blinks, rubs his eyes, thinks he’s hallucinating. But then you smile, that soft, knowing smile he dreamed about, and everything collapses. He doesn’t think—just moves, just grabs you, just feels. “Oh my God,” he breathes, his voice shaking, his arms wrapping around you so tightly he might never let go. “Tell me this is real. Please tell me this is real.” And when you nod, when you whisper his name, he lets out a half-laugh, half-sob against your shoulder.

- Scott becomes clingy after that—not in an overbearing way, but in a you-can’t-leave-me-again way. He constantly reaches for you, constantly checks if you’re still there. He makes up for lost time—cooking you breakfast (badly), taking you on spontaneous road trips, making you laugh until you can’t breathe. Every moment is precious now, every second a gift. He refuses to waste a single one.

- He tells you everything he couldn’t before. How much he missed you, how much it hurt, how many times he caught himself looking for you in a crowded room. He never wants to take you for granted again. Every night, he holds you like you might disappear in the morning, presses kisses to your skin as if he’s trying to memorize you all over again.

- Scott Lang doesn’t know why the universe gave you back to him, but he doesn’t care. All he knows is that this time, no force in the world—no villain, no bad luck, no cosmic cruelty—is going to take you away from him again.

Wade Wilson (Fox)

- Wade doesn’t mourn like other people. He doesn’t wear black, doesn’t cry softly in the night. No, Wade’s grief is ugly, loud, chaotic. After you died, he became worse—more violent, more reckless, more unhinged. He threw himself into fights he knew he couldn’t win, hoping—praying—someone would finally land the killing blow. But they never did. His healing factor cursed him to keep living, to keep hurting.

- He talked to you like you were still there. Made jokes to the empty side of the bed. Left your favorite snacks untouched in the cabinet. The others tried to check on him—Weasel, Domino—but he just shoved them away with a laugh, a joke, a bloody fight he walked away from without a scratch. “I’m fine,” he’d say, voice hollow behind the mask. “Totally normal levels of depression. Probably a seven out of ten. Maybe an eight. Who’s to say?”

- And then, one day, you walked through his door. Just like that. No fanfare, no dramatic music—just you, standing there, looking at him with that same familiar amusement in your eyes. He froze. Blinked. Looked down at the bottle of vodka in his hand. “Oh,” he muttered. “Guess I finally drank myself into hallucinations. Took long enough.” But then you said his name, your voice real, and everything inside him broke.

- He tackled you before you could even take a step closer. Knocked you onto the couch, onto the floor, onto him, his arms squeezing so tight it was a miracle you could still breathe. “If this is a dream, I swear to Ryan Reynolds’ beautiful abs, I will murder my subconscious,” he babbled, his voice cracking. He touched your face, your arms, every inch of you, just to be sure. And when you laughed—when you really laughed—he just lost it. Full-on ugly sobs, face buried in your neck, refusing to ever let go.

- After that, Wade is worse—but in a different way. He never shuts up about how lucky he is. Clings to you, wraps himself around you like a human (questionably clean) blanket, dramatically declares that if you ever die on him again, he’ll personally go to hell and drag you back himself. He texts you every five minutes when you’re not around. If you so much as sneeze, he’s already googling life-threatening illnesses.

- But beneath all the jokes, the over-the-top antics, there’s something soft there. Something raw. Wade Wilson doesn’t believe in happy endings. But he believes in you. And if the universe was kind enough to give you back to him, then maybe—just maybe—he’ll finally start believing in second chances too.

Logan Howlett (Fox)

- Logan is no stranger to grief. He has lost more people than he can count, buried more loved ones than he dares to remember. But losing you—you—was different. It wasn’t just another loss, another name on the long list of people the world had taken from him. It was the loss. The one that finally made him want to lay down and never get up again.

- He disappeared after that. Vanished into the wilderness, into the places where no one could find him. He drank himself into oblivion, picked fights with men twice his size just for the chance to feel something. The nightmares were worse—your face, your voice, the way you reached for him as you died in his arms. He could still feel your blood on his hands, still hear your last breath. There was no escaping it. No running fast enough.

- When he sees you again, it’s not dramatic. It’s not loud. It’s silent. He turns, expecting an enemy, a threat—only to see you. Standing there. Alive. His breath catches in his throat, his heart hammering against his ribs like it’s trying to break free. For a long moment, he just stares, his jaw clenched so tight it aches. “No,” he finally rasps. “No, that ain’t possible.” But you just step closer, your hands trembling, your eyes pleading. “Logan,” you whisper. And something inside him snaps.

- He moves before he can think, his arms wrapping around you with the force of a man drowning who has finally found solid ground. He buries his face in your hair, breathes you in, his whole body shaking. “If this is some kinda sick joke,” he growls against your skin, “I swear to God—” But you just hold him tighter, and he finally—finally—lets himself believe it.

- After that, Logan is fiercely protective. More than before. You are his second chance, his proof that maybe—just maybe—the world hasn’t taken everything from him. He keeps you close, always within reach. He doesn’t talk about the time you were gone, doesn’t say how lost he was without you—but you see it in the way he touches you, like he’s making sure you’re still real.

- Logan has lived a long life, filled with too much pain, too much loss. But now, with you back in his arms, he thinks—just for a moment—that maybe, maybe, he finally has something worth fighting for again.

Matt Murdock

- Grief became a quiet shadow in Matt’s life, a presence that never left. He carried it with him in the way he adjusted his tie, in the way he spoke to Foggy and Karen like he was fine when he wasn’t. He still went out at night, still fought in the streets, but the fire inside him had dimmed. He no longer fought to save the city—he fought because it was the only thing that numbed the ache of losing you.

- He whispered your name in his prayers, his voice breaking over the syllables. In his apartment, your absence was louder than anything else. He reached for you in his sleep, his hands closing around nothing, waking up with an emptiness so heavy it stole his breath. He let the guilt drown him—because you died in his arms, and no matter how many bones he broke or how much blood he spilled, he couldn’t change that.

- When you return, he knows it’s you before you even speak. The world is full of sound, full of heartbeats, full of voices—but yours? Yours has always been different. His entire body stills, his breath hitching in his throat. He listens, waiting for the trick, the deception, because he knows what death feels like. But then you say his name, and the world tilts sideways.

- He moves without thinking, reaching for you, his hands trembling as they trace over your face, your hair, your lips. “You’re real,” he breathes, almost afraid to say it. “You’re real.” And when he finally lets himself believe it, when he pulls you into his arms and holds you so tightly it aches, he lets out a broken sound—somewhere between a sob and a prayer.

- After that, Matt is different. He refuses to let you go alone anywhere, his protectiveness manifesting in quiet touches, in the way his fingers always seek yours. He’s softer now, more open with his emotions, because he’s lost you once and he won’t make the mistake of taking any second for granted.

- At night, when the city is quiet and his scars ache, he traces over your skin as if memorizing every inch of you all over again. “I don’t know how I deserve this,” he whispers against your hair, his voice raw with devotion. “But I’m never letting you go again.”

Frank Castle

- Frank has always been good at loss. Not because he accepts it, but because he survives it. Losing you, though? It was a different kind of wound, one that never stopped bleeding. He didn’t cry. He didn’t scream. He just became colder. The world lost all color, all meaning. He didn’t live after you were gone—he just existed, a weapon with no purpose but destruction.

- He stopped talking. Stopped caring. The men he hunted became nothing more than names on a list, their deaths nothing more than numbers. He never said your name, never spoke of you, because acknowledging you were gone would break something inside him that even he couldn’t put back together.

- And then, one night, you stand in front of him, breathing, alive, looking at him like he’s still the man you loved. He doesn’t believe it at first. His grip tightens around his gun, his entire body coiled and ready for a fight because this? This is cruel. And yet—your eyes. Your heartbeat. The way you whisper, “Frank?” like it’s his name that brings you back to life.

- His hands shake as he reaches for you. He touches your face like it’s something fragile, something that might disappear if he presses too hard. And when you don’t, when you lean into his touch with a softness he thought he’d never feel again, something inside him shatters. He pulls you against him, his grip almost desperate, his breath ragged. “I lost you,” he rasps against your hair. “I lost you, and I didn’t—I didn’t know how to keep going.”

- Frank becomes your shadow after that. He’s gentler with you than he’s ever been with anyone, but that protectiveness? That fire? It’s stronger than ever. If anyone so much as looks at you wrong, they won’t live to make the mistake twice. But with you? With you, he is something softer, something almost human again.

- He doesn’t pray, doesn’t believe in fate. But at night, when you sleep beside him, warm and real, he presses a silent kiss to your forehead and whispers, Thank you. He doesn’t know who he’s thanking. Maybe the universe. Maybe you. All he knows is that this time, he won’t waste a single second.

Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter

- Losing you broke Dex. And when Dex breaks, he destroys. He tried to keep it together—tried to pretend he could move on, that he could keep living without you—but the anger, the madness, the unbearable emptiness inside him only grew. The world felt wrong without you. He felt wrong. He stopped sleeping, stopped feeling anything but the burning need to punish whatever took you away from him.

- He lost control after that. Killed without hesitation, without remorse. Let his mind spiral, let his demons win, because what was the point of fighting them without you? You were his anchor, the one person who made him believe he could be more than the monster inside him. Without you, he had no reason to pretend anymore.

- When he sees you again, he doesn’t react the way most people would. No tears, no disbelief. He stalks toward you, his entire body trembling, his breath uneven. His fingers twitch like they’re reaching for a weapon—like he can’t decide if you’re a dream, a trick, or something worse. “You’re dead,” he says, voice flat, empty. “I held you while you died.” And then, quieter, almost desperate—“Tell me this is real.”

- The second you touch him, the second your fingers brush over his, he breaks. He surges forward, his arms crushing around you, his breathing ragged against your skin. “Don’t leave me again,” he whispers, his voice shaking. “Please. I can’t—I can’t do this without you.” And for the first time in a year, his mind is quiet. The rage, the spiraling thoughts, the unbearable emptiness—it all stops the moment you’re back in his arms.

- After that, Dex is obsessive. He always had that trait in him, but now? Now it’s even worse. You are his, and he refuses to let anything take you away from him again. He follows you like a shadow, sleeps with his arms locked around you, memorizes every detail of your body just in case the universe dares to rip you away from him again.

- There’s a darkness inside him, one that never truly fades. But with you alive, with you real, that darkness is tempered by something softer. Something dangerous. He’s not just a killer anymore. He’s yours. And if anyone tries to take you from him again? He’ll burn the whole world to the ground.

Wanda Maximoff

- Grief clung to Wanda like an old, tattered shawl, woven with the ghosts of everyone she had ever lost. She had thought she had reached her limit—that the universe could take no more from her than it already had. But then it took you. And that, she realized, was the cruelest cut of all. She had survived wars, watched cities crumble, lost her family, her brother, her home. But losing you? That was the first time she felt herself break.

- She became something else after you died. A ghost walking through her own life, untethered from the world. The wind carried whispers of you—the echo of your laughter in a marketplace, the ghost of your breath against her skin in the moments before she woke up alone. And the anger—God, the anger. She lashed out when she fought, red energy sparking at her fingertips with a ferocity she couldn’t contain. She wanted to hurt the universe the way it had hurt her.

- And then, like an answer to a prayer she had never dared to whisper, you stood before her again. At first, she thought it was another cruel trick, another illusion meant to unravel what little remained of her sanity. But then—then she felt you. Your heartbeat, your warmth, the undeniable reality of you. And the moment that truth settled into her bones, she collapsed into you, shaking, weeping, hands clutching desperately at your arms, your shoulders, your face.

- “You were gone,” she sobbed, burying herself in you like she could merge her soul with yours. “I—I felt you leave me.” And for the first time in a year, her magic did not rage. It did not spark and burn with untamed grief. It simply was. It curled around the two of you like a shield, like a silent promise that she would never let you be taken from her again.

- After that, Wanda became something softer, but not weaker. She still held the storm inside her, but now, it had purpose. Now, it had you. She held you like she was afraid the wind might steal you away again, always touching—fingers brushing over yours, arms wrapping around you in sleep, a protective hand against the small of your back in public. She had lost everything before. She would not lose you again.

- At night, when the world was still and your breath rose and fell against her chest, she whispered things she could never say in the daylight. Apologies, promises, prayers in a language she had almost forgotten. And when you stirred, murmuring her name, she simply kissed you—deep and slow, like she could pour her very soul into you, like she could make you stay this time.

Pietro Maximoff

- The world never felt fast enough after you were gone. Time slowed into something unbearable, something suffocating. Pietro had always outrun grief before, always left it in the dust, but your death? That was a weight even he couldn’t shake. He stopped joking. Stopped running for fun. The world lost its color, its spark, its meaning. What was the point of moving quickly when you weren’t at the finish line anymore?

- He tried—he really tried—to pretend. To act like he was okay, to throw on that smirk and tell people, “Eh, I’m fine.” But Wanda knew. She saw it in the way he sat still for too long, the way his hands trembled when he thought no one was looking, the way he lingered in places that reminded him of you. His speed was once his escape, his freedom. Now, every step forward only took him further away from the last time he held you.

- And then—then he sees you. And for the first time in his life, he can’t move. He just stares, his heart a violent drumbeat against his ribs, his breath caught somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “No,” he whispers, blinking rapidly, because this has to be some sick joke. “This isn’t real.” But you are. And the moment you take a step toward him, he snaps.

- He moves too fast, too desperate, grabbing you like you might vanish if he lets go. His hands cup your face, his lips press against every part of you he can reach—forehead, cheeks, hands, lips. “You’re real,” he gasps between kisses, between shaky laughter and choked sobs. “You’re—you’re real.” And suddenly, the world isn’t slow anymore. You are his new gravity, the only thing keeping him from spinning out of control.

- After that, Pietro is obsessed with feeling you close. He picks you up just to hear you laugh, carries you even when you insist you can walk. He talks more, filling every silence with his voice because silence is what haunted him for a year. And he touches—not just because he wants to, but because he needs to. Holding your hand, leaning against you, brushing his fingers over your cheek just to remind himself you’re here.

- And at night, when he curls around you in bed, his heartbeat thrumming like a song against your skin, he whispers things he’s never said before. “I thought I lost you forever.” “I never stopped looking for you.” “If you ever leave me again, I swear I’ll outrun death itself to bring you back.” And when you tell him you’re here, that you’re not going anywhere, he presses a lingering kiss to your shoulder and finally—finally—lets himself breathe again.

Erik Lehnsherr (Fox)

- Erik was already a man carved from loss, molded by grief, his soul tempered in the fires of tragedy. Losing you was not just another wound—it was the moment he snapped completely. He did not rage. He did not weep. He simply became something else. Harder. Colder. More dangerous. Without you, there was no reason to hold back. No reason to believe in anything but vengeance.

- The world paid for your absence. He became relentless, his war against those he deemed responsible for suffering escalating beyond reason. He did not believe in mercy anymore—because if the world had shown you none, why should he? But in the rare, silent moments when he was alone, when his hands were still for once, he would stare at the space beside him and feel something that terrified him. Emptiness.

- When you return, he does not react as a man should when seeing his lost love brought back to life. He does not run to you. He does not whisper your name like a prayer. He simply stares, cold and unreadable, his mind calculating every possibility—illusion, manipulation, deception. And then—then you reach for him, and the moment your hand touches his, his composure shatters.

- His hands shake as they frame your face. His breathing is shallow, his eyes burning with something unreadable. When he speaks, his voice is low, trembling with something dangerous. “Who did this?” he demands. Because someone had to bring you back. And Erik Lehnsherr does not believe in miracles. But when you smile—when you whisper, “I’m here, Erik”—his fury dissolves into something broken, something human. He kisses you like a dying man gasping for air, his hands gripping you as if afraid the wind might steal you away.

- After that, Erik is ruthless in his protectiveness. He keeps you close, watches you with the sharp gaze of a predator waiting for the world to try and take you again. But in private, in the spaces where no one else can see, he is something else. His hands are reverent as they hold you, his voice is soft when he speaks to you, and his nightmares—the ones filled with loss—fade when you press a kiss to his temple.

- He does not believe in peace. He does not believe in forgiveness. But he believes in you. And that? That is the only thing in this world he will not let go of again.

[theshiftingwitch]

Senses shift last

If you've been in any shifting community for any period of time, you must have already heard this sentence.

Senses shift last.

It's an explanation, an unspoken rule, an understanding that when you sit down to shift, the last thing that completes the shift is your senses.

But what if I told you that your senses don't shift at all?

Let's go back to the basic, most simple definition of reality shifting:

Becoming aware of another reality.

This simply means that when you choose to shift, your awareness, your consciousness, is the only thing that shifts. Not your body, not your brain, and most definitely not your senses.

So, how does it work?

Well, as you shift, and you become aware of a different reality, you become conscious of a different version of you with a different brain and a different stream of thoughts and a different body and—you guessed it, different senses altogether.

Maybe your vision is better or you have supernatural hearing. Maybe your sense of taste is enhanced and your buds are miraculous, maybe you feel things 100x more than this reality allows and you're hyper aware of everything around you. The point is, your current reality self's body remains here, and so its senses stay behind as well.

How does this help you shift?

If you know that your senses don't shift, and you know that no matter what you hear, see, feel... Is irrelevant because it's your awareness that shifts, doesn't that take off a shit ton of stress off your shoulders?

As soon as you turn your awareness to a different reality, as soon as you start thinking as your desired reality self, feeling their feelings, immersing yourself in their surrounding, you have shifted. "But I can still feel my bed and I'm supposed to be on a train or a plane or riding a dragon through the seven skies!" Irrelevant. Unimportant. Inconsequential.

Focus on what you see, hear, or feel in imagination. That's where you truly are. As long as you stay there and you don't question your destination, you're bound to shift.

Haven't you ever wondered how people shift awake? How they shift on planes or in cars or in the middle of a nosy park? Where you are doesn't matter. What you see or hear doesn't matter. You don't question your dr and complain about the noise of your family and friends when you shift for a few seconds and claim they ruined the shift for you by distracting you! Why should this reality be any different? So what if you feel a velvet duvet instead of satin sheets? So what if you can hear your siblings fighting instead of your s/o calling your name? So what if you can see flashing lights behind your closed eyelids instead of your ceiling or the sky or a unicorn's ass?

Your senses aren't shifting with you, and that doesn't mean that you have failed! Not at all! You shifted successfully the second you decided to park your ass on your bed and chair and shift.

Which brings me to my final point in this semi-long rant:

Grounding yourself when you wake up in your dr.

Let me ask you something: do you ground yourself when you wake up in your cr? Do you open your eyes and start hyperventilating because you're in your room? Do you start freaking out because your family or your partner walked in?

No. You don't. Because it's just another day in the same room you've been waking up in for years.

It's the same thing for your dr. Unless your dr self has amnesia the exact same second you shift, they have been waking up in the same bed, in the same room, with the same family/friends/roommates/partner for as long as they can remember. Shifting is a natural processes. You're not putting on a skin suit and pretending to be someone you're not. You are becoming aware of the person you have always been.

There will be no freaking out, no out of body experience, no looking in the mirror and squealing over your tight ass and new face. No blushing like a damsel when you see your s/o.

It's going to be natural. Like putting on your favorite pj's, like returning to a home that always made you feel safe and comfortable, like tasting your favorite snack again and getting flashbacks of your childhood memories.

It's going to be familiar, known, comfortable.

It's going to be you.

So stop freaking out over what could potentially happen when you "get there." You have always been there.

Now go shift, and stop stressing out so much about irrelevant details.

You are a shifter.

It's your destiny.

Happy Shifting ❤️

[star-forg]

Art piece for a human au I have in my brain. Perks of being an artist include doing your own art for a fic that you wrote for you. The self indulgence is crazyyyy

Insane ramblings and such under the cut

Made a small (and rushed, and overall low quality) Azura doodle for the project too.

In my head this is a very similar story to "Eliza and Her Monsters" if you know it. Except I haven't read that book in years and I can't tell what ideas are mine versus the book but I don't want to go back and read it all lmao

Anyways, the premise of this would be Luz is a recent high-school graduate and she is in her last summer before college. She's known online as TheGoodWitch, the creator of the hit series The Legend of Azura (it's not as overly flowery in this au, more like Boiling Isles weirdness, as is custom from our Luz). Seemingly overnight the fan base of this series went from big to wayyy too many people and Luz has never felt more seen but also like there is so much pressure on her.

She had always promised herself she would finish the comic before college, so she has a goal that she'll finish it by the end of the summer. But than an Incident happens (undecided what) and Luz goes to spend the summer with Eda, a close family friend and job giver outer.

So she's working in this small town of Gravesfield, and meets all these interesting characters around town and a particularly pretty Amity Blight. A rich girl with a summer home right down the road. And wow! Amity turns out to be the biggest fan ever of The Legend of Azura!

It would be a shortish fic and mostly lighthearted because I think silly goofy vibes would fit this story best. But yeah. I think I'll write it to get it out of my system. And I also want to play around with maybe it being a part of a series because I love huntlow too and want to write about them... I'll find a way mwhahaha~

Anyways. That's my (very brief explanation of my) story idea. It's rough but I'm having a lot of fun coming up with diffrent interactions, and where diffrent characters have settled jn this human realm. Very fun. Would recommend.

[hedgehog-moss]

The cherry tree I planted in front of the greenhouse blossomed for the first time this spring! A round of applause!

The wind always blows from the valley so I planted this tree strategically so that in spring a delicious smell would be delivered in my living-room through the windows, and around the outdoor table where I work, and it worked :) I estimate that it improved my quality of life by 11%. A light spring breeze carrying a cherry blossom smell is the kind of thing that stops me in my tracks ten times a day and makes me close my eyes and take a deep breath and think oh, life is good.

More tree updates: I talked in this post from 2021, then this one from 2022, about how I hoped to plant a 'fruit tree path' in the woods behind my house—this project is still ongoing and, well, hasn't borne fruit yet, but has finally blossomed. My Fruit Alley now boasts 10 trees, and looks like—what it is, a small opening in the woods that I have to deploy heroic and sustained efforts to keep open, because the woods try to reclaim it year after year, patiently, like a slow green tide.

The white thing in the middle is one of the tarps I've been using to smother brambles, I move them every few weeks and it works pretty well. I also use cardboard, but in the spring it's hard to keep up with the sheer rate of growth everywhere. Of course the main enemy is the army of broom that you can see in the distance, all yellow and cheerful-looking at the moment. I mostly fight them in the winter, every year I manage to push them back a few metres...

Here's a photo where you can better see some of the trees :

In total I have planted 2 apple trees, 1 quince tree, 1 mirabelle plum, 3 red plums, 1 nectarine tree, 3 cherry trees. I'm really glad that all of them survived, as I was a bit worried about damage from deer or boars. I did lose 2 chestnut trees that were destroyed so savagely I have to assume it's wild boars, but I had planted them much farther away in the woods and I won't make this mistake again. I now have two new baby chestnuts and I planted them near the greenhouse (downhill):

I think I'd never seen nectarine flowers before, they look exotic! I also discovered this year what quince flowers look like:

The only tree that didn't bloom was the smallest apple tree, and honestly that's her fault because for some reason she decided to make tender new green leaves in the middle of winter, so she pretty much exhausted herself for nothing. And you can't blame climate change and seasons being weird for this, because it was a cold and snowy week and no other nearby fruit trees were making any leaves. The confused apple tree is a New Zealand cultivar, so I suppose you could argue she thinks she's still in New Zealand, except she's never been to New Zealand in her life, she was born and raised in France, she doesn't know New Zealand exists. The only possible explanation is, I suppose, a deep-rooted yearning for their ancestral homeland among New Zealand apple trees.

I was a bit concerned when this tree then failed to produce any leaves in the spring, I worried she might be hopelessly hemispherically-challenged, but then I went back to check two weeks later and she was finally green! In a seasonally-appropriate way!

Other trees I've planted, not in the fruit tree path: a persimmon, but it died very quickly :( I will try again; a goji berry shrub, which has been here for two years and seems to be doing well, but so far no sign of berries; and in front of my house, an amelanchier (un arbre dont ma mère n'arrive jamais à se rappeler le nom et qu'elle persiste à appeler "le mélenchon"):

Finally, my last piece of important tree-related news is that I had the hazel tree near my house removed this winter:

I asked the guy who was working on the road nearby with an excavator digging a drainage trench if he could do it, and it took all of 10 minutes, like picking a flower, it was impressive!

And the reason I wanted to remove it is that there are hundreds of hazel trees in my woods and I wanted something different in this spot by the house. Unfortunately for this deserving hazel, it just wasn't special enough.

So I planted a tiny ginkgo :) And now I just have to be extremely patient as I wait for everyone to grow.