Wait Why Am I Getting Emotional Over The Fact That This Is Christen’s First Major Tournament In The

Here's some notes on some of the upper body muscles so you, artist, don't need to look them up

They are not medically accurate, just enough for artists to know the necessary muscles and how they work together

I 100% recommend doing the last exercise I did to be able to actually place the muscles

Art by Juan Ruiz

hi i hope you're doing well. so i basically broke up with my girlfriend of four years and i feel like half a person. i was wondering if you'd had some sc fic recs that don't have a happy ending? lol it's just that i spend a lot of time reading fics and i absolutely can't stand right now to read something sweet and with happy endings and happy people

ooohhh my love i am so so sorry, i can’t imagine how painful that must be. i’ll leave this post for anyone else to add on to as well, but off the top of my head:

in which a half confession breaks them both by myselfffff

she herself is a haunted house by blymoon is less a love story and more just an ouch little character snapshot of lena

spending all my nights alone (waiting for you to call me) by dancingthru

if anyone has any others, please reply and let me know!

non-happy ending fics are very difficult because people really do not receive them well. i love them, personally, but in my experience (as a writer) the further you veer into that territory, the more risk you run of really low engagement and/or 100 comments that just say “where’s part two so it ends happily!!!!” so a lot of my really particularly angsty ideas never make it onto paper.

ix. super.

“What was that about?” her fiancée asks, coming in, and leaning down to press a kiss against her temple. Kara had just shown Clark and Lois out. Tonight had been their first dinner together after Kara’s proposal. The couple flew in for a rare visit to National City for a journalism conference.

Lena didn’t burn the lasagna, Kara hadn’t spilled the wine, and Lois made a total of just three jokes about them knocking up and getting hitched together. All in all Lena would call it a marvelous success.

“What was what about?” Lena turns face to Kara, catches her wrist and tugs. Kara lets herself get pulled, and crawls onto the couch. Fitting herself into the space between the arms Lena has up, holding her book. Lena’s changed into a soft sweater and leggings, Kara eagerly buries her nose into the fabric over her belly as she drapes herself over Lena.

“Oh, you know,” Kara murmurs, “that look Kal did. The look he gave you. As if he knew you or something.”

Before saying goodbye, Kal had given Lena this look. It was only brief, just after Lois had hugged Lena. But Kara had noticed it, had heard him whisper, “I’m happy for you, Lena. We’ve come a long way.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah?”

“Well…” Lena says, closing the book she’s started reading, in favor of cupping Kara’s face with both hands. “That’s because he did know me, Kara. He knew me.”

“What?”

“He was Lex’s best friend,” Lena explains, and she runs a hand up her hair. Her little habit that makes Kara tend to zone out completely to track the movement of pale fingers against dark hair.

“He was...my brother’s best friend,” Lena tells her again. Softer this time, her index finger tracing the slope of Kara’s nose, bringing her attention back into Lena’s story.

“Lex met him when they were in college. I was— I think? 6th grade? Or something like that.”

In her mind, Kara can see it; Kal from nowhere Kansas bumping into Lex Luthor, rich kid prodigy. She wonders how Lena met him. Was it over Thanksgiving dinner in the Luthor Manor? Was it during one of Lex’s rare visits to Lena in boarding school? Her brother arriving with his Maserati and a stranger in tow? What did Lena think when she first laid eyes on the man that would play the major part in his brother’s demise?

Kara wonders if the three of them ever knew what the future held in store.

“And then you know,” Lena breathes out. “He was just always around. Just always there. Driving around with Lex, eating in the living room. It’s disturbing how domestic all of that was, now that I think about it.”

Kara can’t help but agree. It was easy to imagine, sure, but kind of hard to believe. There would always be a loud dissonance between the boy Clark drove around in his truck to the man who would make all sorts of killing machines just to rid the planet of Kryptonians.

“I never knew you know? Everything was normal. I’d come home, and I’d get a call from my brother and his best friend. And sometimes they’d take me out bowling. Normal stuff you know?”

And yes, Kara does know. Because that was how everything tragedy begins wasn’t it? With everything going normal, until it doesn’t. Until she’s sealed in a pod with no home to go back to, until a brother goes insane, turns the sun red, and suddenly you’re all alone.

“Clark Kent is the person who stayed in his seat when my brother got a call in the middle of one of my chess tournaments,” Lena tells her. “Clark Kent ate ice cream with me after I had my first fight with Andrea. Clark was there the day before I left for college. He was one of the people who called to congratulate me on my graduation day, years later.”

“He was my brother’s best friend, you know?” Lena sighs out. “And for a moment, he was a brother to me, too.”

She tries to picture it all. She tries to imagine Kal and a young Lena Luthor sitting in an ice cream parlor somewhere in Metropolis. Kal, giving Lena a thumbs-up, and mouthin g ‘You’re doing great.’ whilst watching Lena exchange moves on the chessboard. Kal, letting a young Lena sleep on his shoulder after Lex had picked her up for spring break; Luthor Manor looming over them.

It wasn’t hard to picture. After all she’s seen every version of Lena Luthor there is; seen every stiff childhood family photo, every pretentious solo portrait Lillian insisted on, seen every shot James had taken, every magazine cover and of course, there were the selfies that only Kara would only be allowed to see ever.

Although, maybe, it wasn’t really about that.

Maybe it’s easy to imagine because Kara has spent a long time picturing Kal as the doting brother he never got to be with her. Because whilst Kal was out there living his life with the Luthors, Kara was on the other side of the world, trying hard to survive, to fit into this strange new world without anybody helping her.

Don’t get her wrong, she was happy that the important people in her life had each other somewhere along the timeline, once upon a time. During a period in their lives where they still haven’t known Kara, yet. She was glad they had each other then.

Still, Kara can’t help but feel a slight twinge of envy.

Because if Kal could play the role of the dorky, loving big brother to Lena, why couldn’t he have done it for Kara? Why was she the one left in the dust? But today wasn’t about Kara. They can talk about it some other time. She tunes in again just in time for Lena to say, “And then, a super came around. Superman happened. And Lex—”

She doesn’t need Lena to finish that.

“And then everything went to hell?”

“Yeah,” Lena whispers, “and then everything went to hell. I grew up. Clark stayed away. Superman won. Lex lost.”

“And then you met me?”

“And then I met you, yeah.” This time she can hear the smile in Lena’s voice, it makes Kara’s lips turn up a little too.

“I’m sorry he hurt you. That day, when we came to interview you.” Kara can still remember the none too subtle jabs Clark had said; can still remember that even then she already felt the inexplicable urge to protect this woman. Kara just knew, right away. Lena’s just as full of good as any Super out there, deserved just as good a chance the world had given to the two of them.

“I’ve forgiven him a long time ago, Kara. Lex damaged us both. And Clark was just trying to protect himself.”

“Still,” Kara says, “you deserved better than that. If he really cared for you at all, he would’ve checked on you, after what Lex had done. Instead, he assumed the worst.”

“Yeah, he shouldn’t have done that, I know. But that was a long time ago, darling. And we’ve both made amends.” Her finger traces the slope of Kara’s nose again, smooths out the crinkle that had formed.

“He’s family now,” Lena says slowly. “And families tend to be just a bit complicated, I’ve learned.”

Kara fully grins up at that, hearing Lena talk about her family— their family like that.

“Mm. You’re right. They are.”

Lena smiles at her, “I’m always right.”

Kara laughs, “Yeah, yeah you are. Can’t argue with that.”

She surges forward a bit to catch Lena’s lips in a soft kiss.

When they pull away, Kara’s eyes are sparkling.

“So…” she says, “wanna hear about how I used to change Superman’s diapers?”

I’ve been thinking about The Half Of It all weekend (the trailer of which just started randomly playing when I logged into Netflix on Friday and I was curious enough to give it a shot and have no regrets) and when I was gushing to my brother about it earlier, I realized why I love it so much:

See, setting up the whole “nerdy girl helps jock boy get popular girl” cliche and then throwing in the twist that “nerdy girl loves popular girl too” is fantastic, every part of the queer storyline was beautiful, the opening monologue and how it was a direct parallel to the water scene, the painting metaphors, the jean jacket, the cliche religious hick small-town that could have been mine, the fact that they literally showed a mountain and prompted me to spend a whole day making a Landslide AMV (cough), the secret looks they give each other throughout the movie, that final kiss and the promise of something more in the future, all wonderful, beautiful, NEEDED…

But none of that compares to the amazing love story that happened between Paul and Ellie. These two going from being rivals to being tentative friends to having a genuine love for each other that confuses Paul because he’s a teenager in a small-town and, let’s face it, he probably only learned “you either feel a casual friendship with this person or you feel horny af” because that’s the binary they teach in these small town high schools, so it makes sense that he looks all sorts of confused when he realizes how much he likes her, and you can tell that he’s still confused, even as he goes to kiss her, then she immediately pushes him away which adds to even more confusion, then he realizes that she’s queer, which goes against every bit of small-town-religious-hick lesson that he had ever learned. So, he lashes out at her and he runs away and I do wish he had been supportive all along but then we wouldn’t get the scene in the kitchen so it was honestly worth it because…

The scene in the kitchen. When Ellie’s father is reminiscing about his own familial love towards his daughter and he asks, “Have you ever loved someone so much you don’t want anything about her to change?” and you just see Paul’s reaction, just look at this:

That is someone who just realized what platonic love is!

Not only that, he realized that his platonic love for Ellie is so strong that he is willing to accept her, no matter what, and help her, no matter what, and love her, no matter what. Not a romantic love, not a familial love, but a pure, genuine, deep, platonic love between a boy and a girl! WHAT A CONCEPT!

Then, of course, he stands up for her, literally, in church. He does so without outing her and, just a note, he never outs her to her father, even when her father begs him to say why Ellie is so upset, Paul never outs her and I know, I know, people shouldn’t usually get props for not being jerks, but seeing as how every other guy in that school is that stereotypical hick/jock, the fact that he’s able to subconsciously keep her secret shows how deep his love is, even when he doesn’t even realize it.

Then, of course, you have him crying on the platform and chasing the train to show her how much he loves her, to make her laugh and cry and whisper, “Moron!” and you know that, whatever the future holds for Ellie and Aster, that’s nothing compared to the love and support that Ellie will always get from Paul and that’s nothing compared to the love and support I have for this movie, it’s so good, you need to watch it…

I've seen a lot of discussion around Tobin and which team she might end up in and let me share my opinion on it.

First off, none of us know what Tobin wants so any discussion around why a specific team did not happen should take that into account. Maybe she did not want it as well.

Secondly, she is nearing the end of her career and she might have dreams that none of us considered. Maybe that is playing with Arsenal maybe that is playing in CL again and maybe it is as simple as wanting to give FAWSL another go. I don't know about everyone but the pandemic really changed my views on how I viewed my future so it could be the case for her as well especially after an almost career ending injury.

Thirdly, for those focused on the couple I think they can both realize their dreams in the next couple of years whatever those dreams might be and that is good they have a whole lifetime together after that.

Lastly, I will repeat we don't know what Tobin really wants. Does she really want San Diego or Europe? It is impossible to say so no need to get frustrated about the developments maybe they are working out just as she wanted.

kara "excuse me sir thats mine" danvers

There'll be a moment when you realise you're 27 when yesterday you were just 17; and you wouldn't be able to tell how a decade passed away and your life got divided into before and afters. The fury of youth will subdue and nothing will really change but everything will feel different when you look at old photographs and blurry videos taken on cheap mobile phones. Scents will remind you of childhood and certain friends you don't talk to anymore, hangouts will become reunions and mom's burnt pie will become the best food you ever had. And I know on some days you won't be able to show anything of those 10 years but I hope you remember to breathe, and let go of the knot in your chest. I hope you go out in the sun and live a little, because tomorrow is 37.

Edit- I added the visualizer for this piece on my YT, check it out here

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The Flesh I Burned