#why she so damn pretty

[thechanelmuse]

A'ja MF Wilson covers Marie Claire's  "Women in Sports Issue," July 2024

"[President of the Las Vegas Aces, Nikki] Fargas speaks of Wilson as if describing a scientific state, as something both defined and in evolution. 'She’s the nucleus of this league,' Fargas says. 'There’s a lot of great players in this league. There’s a lot of great players who came before her [Wilson] and a lot of great players that will come after her. But right now, in this era that we’re in, she’s the most dominant women’s basketball player in the world.'”

...Y'all do know she hasn't' even peaked yet, right? What a time for this league.

Photographer: Chrisean Rose | Stylist: Annina Mislin | Hair Stylist: Kiyah Wright | Makeup Artist: Autumn Moultrie | Manicurist: Kimmie Kyees

[inkskinned]

okay is she being actually immature or is it just a woman over 30 expressing a human experience you find to be immature.

like yeah. at certain ages... let shit go. im not defending the real immature shit. im not defending the karen you're picturing. i worked in retail i hate those people too. (once somebody got mad at me because she didn't like how our winter window decor was a snowman smoking a pipe. i wish i was joking).

but men at 57 will write books about how 17 year old girls are soooo sexy. they will invent worlds where women have to be naked for "armor reasons." they will write songs that treat women as objects. people rush to defend them. meanwhile a woman at 35 will be like "heartbreak is hard, actually" or "i feel betrayed by a friend" or "i am struggling with something emotionally." immediately people will say stuff like this woman is 35 by the way. by the way this woman is SO OLD to be experiencing this. BY THE WAY.

im 31, almost 32. the other day a poet was blasted online because at her "big age", she had written a poem about feeling unloved. top comment was "this woman is 29 by the way." this woman is too old to still be useful, by the way. she has to behave better . maybe if she was a good wife and mother she could stop existing loudly, and the story could continue on without her. this woman has served her purpose, by the way. she's so cringe, by the way. at 29 - so old! - she still hasn't figured out that her existence should be one of shame.

[l0vel3tterl0ver]

Her jaw. Her sculpted nose. Her curvy dark lips and her gapped toothed smile. Her blue veins on her pretty brown skin. Her thick brows. Her soft hair. Her distrustful face and hopeful eyes. Her dazzling, sparking, twinkling silver eyes. Her strong body and unyielding willpower. Her drive and ambition. And her guarded façade. And her deep emotions. And her unspoken words. And her heart.

And Sevika…and Sevika…and Sevika…

[brighteuphony]

@xoxo-lahh

So in this verse, Tsunade never ends up teaching Sakura- as that role is fulfilled by Chiyo. (But she DOES return to Konoha eventually).

And Chiyo's first rule (for everything lol) is: Nothing is Free.

Chiyo always demanded something in return for healing, and unlike Tsunade, she considered medical jutsu a part of her arsenal. If it could kill, then it was always an option.

So Sakura learned from that mindset, trading her services and using her rare skillet as a powerful negotiating tactic, especially during Tea Country's civil war. Her healing effectively kept her, Enji, and Saeko in relative safety and provided her a card to play when she needed.

And, while Sakura is nowhere near as jaded as Chiyo is, and often enough of a bleeding heart to help people for damn near free, (a place to stay, food for the night, a new holster for her kunai), she is also VERY pragmatic about her skillset. The civil war taught her that sometimes, letting someone die is better. This puts her at odds with Tsunade, who has a very different mindset (and was, historically, bitter enemies with Chiyo).

Another issue that arises with Tsunade, is that the Godaime is a doctor- while Chiyo is more of a healer. Their understanding of the human body comes from a different place.

Tsunade can name every bone and muscle and perform open-heart surgeries. Sakura can heal bone and stitch back together muscles and flesh on a very basic level, but she's never going to be able to open up a human body and revolutionize medical history like she does in canon. (In canon, Sakura creates a Jutsu that allows her to do a four-man surgery alone; she can't do that here.)

However, she can do some stuff that Tsunade claims is impossible—like reconstructing/altering someone's chakra network, unblocking tenketsu, sometimes turning off someone's dojutsu from a distance, and lite-healing remotely (Tsunade is very upset about this one specifically). A lot of it comes from her mastery of Genjutsu.

Genjutsu, as I reworked in my comic, requires a complete understanding of someone's chakra network to control ALL their senses. Sakura's understanding and control are so prodigious that she can almost autonomously control people's bodily functions (a skillset that is GREATLY aided by training with Chiyo's puppet mastery).

She uses Genjutsu as a tool to understand the body and employs it as both support (helping an ally maintain a sense of gravity as they're pulled underground or flung in the air, etc) and offense.

And that's it for the wall of text! Once again, thank you SO much for the amazingly kind words and all the interest in this AU! <3

[jamandjazz]

My personal headcanon is that Pony got his love for reading from Darry. When Darry was in high school he’d read the books he got in class out loud to Ponyboy and straight up just handed him some of the easier ones so they could talk about it later. In my brain the reason Ponyboy clings onto it so much is because it’s one of the things he and Darry REALLY bonded over when he was a kid and it just brings back good memories of when they got along better.

[serpentface]

You meet your other sister-in-law very briefly.

She arrives unannounced in full Odonii garb and a long cloak for the cold, soaked through with rain. She's taller than most men, and carries herself like one too. Her hair spills out of her veil, not only unbraided but a horrendous mess. It's kind of fascinating. You catch a glimpse of a handgun slung across her back, hidden beneath her cloak. This is especially exciting; you’ve never seen one up close. You try to peek around her to get a better look at it, and flush in embarrassment when she catches you, shooting you a cold glare.

It doesn't seem like she speaks much without being spoken to, and you aren’t really the type to initiate conversations either. Livya fills in for the both of you, prompting your sister-in-law to introduce herself. Her name is Couya. You give her a respectful bow and curtsy, she gives a very slight bow back without looking you in the eye. She compliments your necklace. Or at least, she mumbles something while looking in the general direction of your necklace, and it might have been a compliment. You aren’t sure whether there’s something wrong with her or she’s just rude.

She's just her for filial duties at the family shrine, and she doesn't stay long. Livya stops her on her way out. She says she's disappointed that the one time in a year she can be bothered to come by, she shows up looking like a disheveled street-whore in priest's clothing. Look at Hibrides, she didn't even know we were having company and still did up her hair so nicely, and all by herself too. Thank God your father isn't here to see this, he's suffered enough embarrassment as it is-.

Couya stands in the doorway in silence through this whole speech. You thoroughly inspect a loose tile in the floor and try your best to pretend you aren't there. Livya doesn't take her hand off your shoulder the whole time.

---

[I've been writing an overview of Hibrides' first several years of marriage for the hell of it. It's just a summary but it's written with like, the slightest bit of prose, so figured I'd dump a section here]

[weirdmageddon]

It's not totally clear here why Dave's dream self appears to be already awake while his real self is also awake. I think we must infer that his dream self is in some sort of "waking trance" where he's technically awake but too preoccupied by certain things to be considered fully awake.

thinking about jade being lonely as hell on her island and going to sleep waking up on prospit and seeing john (not knowing his name yet) asleep plagued with the creepy dersite doll dreams with the scary teeth and just aughhhh

and she’d like overhear the white queen talk about the dark kingdom derse and the prince(sse)s of the moon that are there and trying to attract as little attention as possible jade would fly out there through the medium because shes so lonely. and she’d go to the purple moons’ towers. she’d find a girl is sound asleep in her purple robes and bed. but the other kid on the moon she finds is awake! except… not really. more like in a trance state. awake but not conscious. but she likes to hear whatever garbled stuff this triangle-speced boy has to say

the trip is long but jade visits this boy a few times since he’s the only non-asleep person like her she can interact with face to face. he usually seems lost in his own world, usually listening to music or talking to himself about stuff that doesnt make much sense. when she’s deprived of sapient affection she’ll touch him in small gestures like holding his hand while he listens to his music and he’ll squeeze back instinctually, and it helps her experience a microdose of the human connection. maybe he doesnt get much in the way of sapient affection either. when she hears The Horrors of the furthest ring another dream headset pops into existence for her to listen along with him and they listen to whatever music hes making. who is he

[itsthatlake]

an afternoon of rest

Art inspired and pose taken from the oil painting "An afternoon of rest" by Guillaume Seignac (1870-1924).

[joethehoeee]

My last prompt from Stricklake month was a little...Angsty. So now I will give you some fluff.

My sweet babys, I love them so much 😭🩷

For anyone who might ask "but Strickler technically can't walk under the sun- 🤓☝️"...SHUT-

Nooo. Valid Question...

Answere:

There is a small ring on his finger...a certain object that was magically changed to allow him to walk amongst Humans in the sun.

I made it so that Barbara and Walter are bound together, she get's a longer life/his aging while He gets her ability to walk throu the sun/eat more human stuff. I personally didn’t wanna make him have his human form because...

Come on...We all know Troll Walter is supermercy and absolutly more attractive than human Walt...right?

Anyways...this is MY happy ever after AU and YES you will get a writing and possible art for their Wedding as well...and maybe the Wedding night...👀

But for now, enjoy my Art and fanfiction for it.

Fanfiction Link

Other Versions + Closeup:

[sunnixsunshine]

AAAAAH SORA ATTACK

Three fun facts:

Her kimono is supposed to match with Sanji’s for the most part and her cute dress is what she wore while in wci arc—because yeah they kinda kidnapped her as further leverage over Sanji in this au :(…. (Of which I intend to write once I really catch up to wci and wano lol trying to read ahead is hard to do while working). Sora and the twins, Shinjiro(blond) and Takehiko(green), have a ten year age gap—also bonus fact, the twins are supposed to be premature, being born roughly around 35 weeks, which isnt even uncommon for twins in the first place, but I have nooooo idea how to really depict that because babies are hard to draw as isssssss lmao

[starry-slithers]

My BEAUTIFUL Mc Cariad in the modern day using https://meiker.io/play/13405/online.html

[bayetea]

I don't like the judo flip in moa as much as the next guy but in my eyes it's largely the result of rick not taking female violence half as seriously as male violence (a result of viewing women as weaker and inferior to men such that their acts of violence don't need to be taken as seriously) and not so much anything about annabeth herself. like I do genuinely feel that annabeth is a complex heroine and definitely one of the better ones in the realm of ya action-adventure fiction produced in the past 25 years but she is still a girl being written by a man and all I'm saying is that her writing clearly reflects that sometimes (more in tags)

[puppppppppy]

couldnt decide on drawing fish or horsies

[braincelldeficit]

Was anyone going to tell me Kiki had an undercut or was I supposed to gay panic in surprise on my own

[fighting-these-demons]

Divorce Saga Domon - A Haunted Honk Prequel

Hello Internet Stranger looking up G Gundam on Tumblr dot com!

This is an idea for a fic set in an Alternate Universe involving Queer Non-Canon Relationships between the characters of the series.

If you are not looking for this content please scroll on.

If you ARE looking for this content - and you're ok with reading my and other's Headcanons for this Alternate Universe I've haphazardly spun up -

Then go ahead and feel free to:

Check The Tags Of This Post For The Pairings

and click the Read More below!

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Ended up outlining a completely different fic as a Segway for an explanation instead of making progress on the Royal Flush Haunted Honk AU's Clown Motel Fic like I wanted to but uh....

For y'all's review for the AU: A Prequel Outline - Divorce Saga Domon

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Hey real quick - I'm thinking of maybe changing the timeline to 2 years post canon as opposed to 3 years and change post canon.

The reason being: I had a thought that this scene could either be part if the fic or if it's getting to big then it could be a stand alone tie-in prequel fic as part of this AU but - like

Immediately Post Divorce Domon Needs Space and runs off. As one does. And he runs to Earth because he just wants to Get Lost for a while.

He has Argo smuggle him out to avoid detection.

Argo has Andrew help stow Domon in a storage hanger of a Neo Canadian supply ship that's returning to the US - they have trade often enough and share agricultural resources - which leads to Domon ending up in New York when he hits Earthside pavement.

He's privately worked on his English the last couple of months and after being dropped in New York with a different hairstyle, outfit, and accent he's unrecognizable. 

He considers making his way west to get some solitude in the wilderness, but something about that initial plan feels off now that he's on the ground.

Chibodee is also Earthside for a special series of prize fights aimed at raising charitable appeal for the US in the eyes of Neo Americans.

Domon decides to hit up Chibodee for a fight on a day between matches hoping it'll clear his head and give him the clarity to decide on a course of action. What ends up happening is an unexpected heart to heart via blows and a breakdown.

Domon is happy for Rain and Kyoji, and he knows it's not true; but he feels like he lost a piece of himself when his relationship with Rain fell apart.

Domon's instinct is to run after that but Chibodee knows this city and Domon doesn't hide out for long before Chibodee drags him back to his place to stay and just "Chill out and breathe. You don't have to be anyone but yourself here. You can take as long as you need to find out what everything changing means for you." Friends and teammates stick together.

So Domon spends a few weeks with Chibodee sparring and hanging out in New York. Chibodee does a frankly awesome job at containing his feelings because he's focusing on Domons feelings and being a good friend first and foremost. Whatever he's feeling can wait until after Domon is done going though it.

There's a bit of a twinge in Domon's heart as he leaves that he can't really place.

After he returns to Neo Japan and gets settled back into life with his family, The Dreams start.

They're mainly set in New York. Small things first like noticing Chibodee's smile and his eyes. Then sparring sessions that begin to turn lurid.

He thought these kinds of dreams would stop after he was married.... he doesn't know what to do about this.

I just figure it gives more clarity and sense of time for the journey from Comphet Marriage Dissolution to Feelings to Confession. Idk.

But I got stuck on a bit and then had this thought and needed to get it down before I lost it and it was so long it made sense to make it its own post as opposed to several replies.

The Maize and Clown Motel will probably still be 3 years and change post canon for clarification.

@thedragonchilde @amplexadversary @youreaclownnow

[starry-bi-sky]

Oh man, I binged the first 20 episodes of The Princess's Jewels a few days ago after watching a few review videos on it because I had to see just how bad it actually was, and I've decided to talk more about it here.

For the entire spite-fueled four hours of reading, i kept stopping to take screenshots to send them to @the-navistar-carol and then talk about how stupid a lot of the plot points were. I jokingly called Ariana a jellyfish based on her hairstyle, and the nickname stuck after Gen said "yeah and she's like an actual jellyfish by how the trick you into getting closer because they're so pretty before paralyzing you with their stingers."

I'm putting this under a read more because, as normal, I write a lot.

We all know Jellyfish sucks, but what gets me the most is the wasted potential of the guys (among other things). They are all so! Interesting! And they befall the same fate as female harem members in that their backgrounds and personalities all get set to the wayside in favor of fawning over the MC. They all come from unique, diverse backgrounds that don't get touched up on at all. For example:

Why did Efrit wear a mask all the time when his older brother didn't? Why did he say that "he finally found the woman he was going to reveal his face to" to Abal after he met Jellyfish? Is it some kind of cultural thing for the soldiers and warriors of Xek to wear masks until they fall in love? That would explain why his brother has his face revealed, cuz he's not a warrior! Why is the second prince in charge of the country's army and not the king himself? Why did he STAY the general of the army after he fucked off to another kingdom to become the lover of a foreign state?

Why was Haun Baek taken in by the royal family? The flashback of the queen giving him a new name implies to me that he may have been a slave of some kind, which puts a lot of perspective on why so many people were against his rise to power and disliked him. He was mentioned to be a general and head of the security division of the king, but as far as chapter 21 goes, this has never been brought up again. He's the Harem Pretty Boy who does all the work in high society for Jellyfish.

Speaking of fighting -- when did Jellyfish get a thigh tattoo to summon her sword? What's the backstory behind that? It probably has something to do with the 'swordmaster' thing (which is ANOTHER thing) but when did she get it? Why was she even allowed to learn swordfighting if she came from a seemingly implied patriarchal society? More importantly -- why was everyone okay with this? Why is it only the off-screen "evil old advisors" that hate her doing this.

Are these evil old advisors in the room with us right now?

Why are Nell and his family werewolves? Where did their magic recorder ability come from? This was just seemingly a power that he had that came out of nowhere when they were looking into Benela and her family. From the videos I had assumed he was a poor family that rose into dukedom after the war, but apparently they've always been? Dukes? And the other advisors still see the family as a threat? On one hand I can see where they're coming from, but on the other I don't think the comic is portraying them as "threats" the way I think they are. Nell and his family are seemingly treated like they were commoners who suddenly rose into nobility, rather than pre-existing nobility that fell onto hard times.

I want to know more about Jade and the fact that he's from a holy house from an entirely different country -- i cannot believe Ariana got away with that btw. Like im not even touching the gross overreach of power that is her demanding a noble not of her kingdom to be castrated, but more so on the fact that she practically coerced and stole a descendant of a saint and faced?? No backlash from this? None whatsoever? The gods and the people just let her get away with it because oh, it's an honor for this snobby empirical princess to come in and steal one of their chosen saintly descendants all because his dad pissed her off?

Like I agree that the dad was a scumbag, but Ariana calling him out on it is like the pot calling the kettle black.

Also, I wish Benela and her family were a bigger threat than TJP claims they are. Like, this is apparently the emperor's favored concubine who stole the love of the emperor away from the empress and successfully murdered the crown prince without getting caught. She's apparently some master manipulator but Jellyfish faces no trouble thwarting her at every turn. So what is it? Is she a master manipulator or is she a dunce? Or is the emperor just an idiot who doesn't care about his sons because with the way he treats them, you'd think they were bastard children.

The banquet "queen heel syndrome" scene gets me especially so because that was a good fucking plan!

Benela's plan to reveal and shine a light on Jellyfish's harem and how it was negatively impacting her image and high society was a good plan! That was brilliant! Because it had basis of truth in it. I don't know if the queen heel syndrome thing was a false rumor, or something she deliberately fabricated -- the comic never actually goes out of it's way to disprove it. In fact, I'd argue the QHS thing is *backed* by it, because just a few chapters prior when we first meet Benela, there's a side comment made by a noble woman about how her daughter was chasing after some man she was infatuated with.

But what I do know is that Jellyfish has been disgraceful towards her fiancé and that she has been indulging in her harem. By all accounts, by the implied societal standards of Arbezela or Azkaban, Jellyfish is being a whore. I am not one for mindlessly slut-shaming, but sometimes slut-shaming IS okay if it has a narrative purpose. And it does here. And Jellyfish doesnt even disprove any of their arguments, in fact she does a 1st grade level deflection and instead goes right for insulting Bavilo's lack of marriage prospects, which wasn't what they were talking about at all.

I'd applaud the deflection if it wasn't Ariana doing it, and if it wasn't such a serious and valid accusation that Benela and her family were making.In any other manhwa, this would have worked. This would have damaged Ariana's reputation, and it should've had some actual consequences to it. Instead they completely skip over this plot because the author knows that Ariana has no defense, she can't talk or excuse her way out because regardless of the truth behind the Queen Heel Syndrome, the fact remains what she is doing is inherently shameful.

Like! I am so mad that their scheme didn't work, because it! Was! A! Good scheme! All the best lies have some part of the truth in it, and Ariana should not have been able to weasel herself out of that so easily. In fact, the fact that she did just makes the emperor look like an even bigger incompetent.

Wanna know how this ended? It ended with the emperor blowing up at Bavilo because Bavilo said that he "could make it to the top on his own without the help of talented subordinates" and the emperor perceived that as a slight against him because, apparently, Bavilo was claiming to be heir to the throne? When nowhere in that sentence did Bavilo even so much as say or imply such a thing?

and also--- WHY is it such a bad thing that he's claiming to be vying for the heir seat? It's empty! The Emperor hasn't announced a new successor yet, of course Bavilo would say he wanted to be the crown prince. Nothing that Bavilo said was insulting towards anyone, and was actually quite admirable.

What gets me too is that right after this chapter, the empress claims that the princes are "illegitimate children" because they're the sons of concubines, and that if they were chosen for the role of "carrier of the light" people would question their parentage-- ???

First of all, not at all how concubines work. Concubines are a legitimate role in a harem structure and quite literally their job is to produce more heirs for the throne as back-ups in case something happens to the Heir Apparent. Like that's literally their job. They are official members of the royal palace, to claim that their children aren't legitimate is to claim that they're merely mistresses, not concubines. This was both an insult to the concubines AND the emperor.

Like my god I do not have the time to go into all of the plot holes of this webtoon. I haven't even gone into the total lack of consequences Ariana experiences both politically and socially, and how all of the interesting conflict happens off screen, nor the blatant racism and misogyny present throughout the webtoon, NOR the absolute SHIT worldbuilding.