#hey thanks for asking!

[hehosts-moved]

Can you give a hc about a relation between ji-hun and deng?

sure!

so to give. a minor breakdown of how they feel about each other — ji-hun feels very negatively towards deng, whereas deng is on a positive swing of ambivalence. he doesn't know how to feel about ji-hun, just that he does feel. he is obsessed with ji-hun, which i have mentioned. the reason for this obsession is because deng doesn't know anyone else like him.

also —— goro did not find deng, deng was brought to goro. it was ji-hun that saved deng, or at least put the action into motion.

generally speaking, if ji-hun wants something ... deng wants it too. and more than ji-hun. it's rare that deng isn't probing around a bit. even if he's not directly involved, even outright stating that he "isn't supposed to be in this plot," he'll always find a way to involve himself. if he isn't involving himself, goro is involving him. personally, goro likes the tension. it keeps them hungry.

deng is far happier with his servitude to goro than ji-hun.

ji-hun's color: green deng's color: red goro's color: red

ji-hun means "wisdom, intellect." deng means "red." these names were chosen for them. more, ji-hun was chosen for ji-hun. deng got to choose his name.

their deals are different, but they both made deals for life. their servitude to that man is eternal ... until they are replaced.

deng is thai, whereas ji-hun is chinese. they speak both languages, as well as japanese and english, to each other frequently. when frustrated, deng will quip at ji-hun in chinese. ji-hun will give casual jabs in thai.

ji-hun and deng have different skills / perks. /gifts, but they. are (almost) equally matched. deng is faster than ji-hun, but ji-hun is stronger than deng. they both possess "the sight."

[floral-hex]

What kind of gumbo???

Okay, I usually try to avoid mentioning meat out of deference to any veggie mutuals, but since you asked, it’s shrimp and chicken and it’s going to be great

[squidwujun]

"Hey how is it going?"

[egophiliac]

NEW BIRTHDAY THEME IS OUT!!!!!!!!!!!

BIRTHDAY SLUMBER PARTY, HERE WE COME

I think the theme is more loungewear than straight-up pajamas, but hey, I'm not complaining! (and -- look, we still have the groovies, I'm not giving up hope for animal kigurumi until I gotta)

[inkskinned]

so while i was writing the book, i became violently suicidal.

this was mostly due to the fact that i had a very bad reaction to some meds and my brain stopped producing any serotonin. also i was in the last semester of grad school where it's actually illegal to feel anything but dread. so it wasn't going well.

somewhere in the fog of it i became aware i needed help. nobody was taking clients or my insurance. i didn't want to do inpatient care - it wasn't right for my needs. there's not really an "in between" stage between "inpatient" and "no care," but i was trying to do the right thing. i was trying to activate the chain of command that was my emergency plan. i knew i needed help now.

i used betterhelp.

i know, i know. i'm a straight-A student and so smart and so clever, how could i ever use something so blatantly bad. to be honest with you, i didn't feel particularly keen on it from the getgo - things that seem too good to be true usually are. also, if something online is free, the price is usually your privacy.

the thing is that there was kind of a global pandemic happening at the time and i worked 5 jobs alongside of being a fulltime student and also like writing a book on the side. it is a miracle that i even thought about getting help. i would love to tell you i had the mental wherewithal to like, process whether this was the right choice for me. mostly i was desperate. i was so suicidal that i was trying to find a reason to stay inside of fortune cookies. i was the kind of suicidal that looks like splatterpaint. i hadn't been that bad in an entire decade.

they took my data. i gave them it freely. somewhere out there, they have a dossier on me. on everything i survived. my story in little datapoints, scattergraphed beautifully.

the first woman told me that really i should be grateful, because (and this is a direct quote): "at least you're not anne frank." i said that i felt that statement was antisemitic, as anne frank's life and experience shouldn't be compared to like, a nonbinary lesbian in western massachusetts. the therapist said that i should try to use lucid dreaming to try to picture myself in an actually scary situation, like running from nazis.

i applied for another therapist. i was willing to accept the possibility that there was a bad apple in the bunch. the next therapist and i even laughed about how inappropriate that statement was. and then, in our next session: the new therapist said if i was struggling with body image issues, i should just work harder on my appearance. she spent 3 sessions in a row talking about how she was grieving, and made me memorize facts about her grandmother so "she can live on through my clients."

i am a three's-a-charm kind of person. okay, so what if the last person made me uncomfortable. i figured it was just a misunderstanding of priorities - she had felt she was sharing with me, i had felt like i had to take care of her. i applied for another therapist.

the last woman asked me to help her pray. she bowed her head. i stared at her, frozen, while she said: lord, i beg you: cure her. take the pain of being gay away from her.

i spent somewhere between 2.5 and 3 months on betterhelp. in that whole time, i was not getting the professional help i so desperately needed, even though i was fucking trying.

in the end, i survived this because i finally could get off the meds that were literally killing me. a request for a real therapist finally went through. i survived because my friends saved my life. because nick let me sob myself dry in his arms. because maddie took the razors out of my room when i asked them to. because grace slept over in my bed for like 3 weeks in a row since nobody trusted me not to hurt myself when i was alone. i survived because i got fucking lucky. because even when i was desperately suicidal, i was too old and too self-aware to take "you need to be prettier" as good advice.

the thing is that there's a 19 year old me who isn't like that. who would have heard "just think about how grateful you should be" and said - oh, i see. i would have assumed that is what it means to be in therapy: the same thing my abusers used to tell me. that i am just pretending and lazy. that i am ugly and unworthy.

betterhelp positioned itself to take advantage of an incredibly vulnerable community. it preys on desperation. it knows it is serving people who are not doing well mentally. it saw that there is a huge need for real, immediate, compassionate mental health care: and then it fucking takes your money and privacy.

i still get their ads on instagram. last night i watched as a woman in a pool pretends to talk to a different woman. they discuss her anxiety.

there's a 19 year old version of me, and she didn't survive this. she was too tired, and drowning. i almost fucking died. this thing almost fucking killed me.

in the ad, the woman playing the therapist takes a note on a clipboard and then nods once, sagely.

i have to admit it's a pretty scene. the steam and light coming off the pool water lands on the actresses. like this, it almost looks baptismal, holy.

[whump-in-the-closet]

weak in the knees for situations where a stoic whumpee allows someone to help them. they don't say a word of acceptance but they don't protest either. Too injured to say no and too tired to deny they need it. Just grudgingly letting a gentle hand guide them to a bed or to wrap a wound. Then a quiet, "thank you." in between sharp breathing as they try not to break down in front of someone else. Love love love shielded vulnerability

[stealingpotatoes]

OMGGGG YOU LIKE AVATAR I'LL EAT GLASS I'M SO HAPPYYYYYYYYYYY

will be get ever some art of it from youuuu?

PUT THE GLASS DOWN eat this instead

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 126

You know what would be hilarious? 

Constantine comes into one of those meetings as he sometimes does every blue moon. Though the proper word would be storms into a meeting and practically slams a whole stack of papers down. “Can someone bloody explain to me why the American-fucking-government is trying to go to war with the fucking Infinite Realms?!” 

The Justice League is of course alarmed and confused- and also John weren’t you in Hell?! Yeah, he was, where the fuck do you think he found out about this? 

Now if you’ll excuse him he’s going back to the House of Mysteries with his now haunted trench coat. John, John Constantine what the fuck do you mean by that? No don’t just leave, don’t leave this mess just for them- JOHN! 

[figloom]

…….We are so back🗣️‼️

Twisted from the Mouse himself. By all means an art prodigy, Lille longs for the creatively pure years of his childhood. He’s been burned by corporate interest too many times rendering him distrustful and tired. Perhaps he might reignite his passion in NRC…

[heybiji]

magic man

[ekingston]

A chef!AU, maybe? In any case, a story in which Kara and Lena meet through one of them preparing/serving/etc food for the other and build their relationship based on that.

(also on ao3.)

“I’m telling you, Alex. It’s her.”

At three pm on a Tuesday their restaurant is characteristically dead, save for the one lone customer Kara is spying on from behind the kitchen doors. The woman is perched, a little perilously, on a barstool at the counter. It’s the one that’s closest to their register, the one with the wobbly leg that Alex keeps telling Kara to fix. One of her red-soled heels is dangling from an impatiently bouncing left foot.

“This is the fourth time this week she’s come in here,” Kara says. “You don’t think that’s just a little bit suspicious?”

Alex shrugs, fully committed to her task of mincing onions. “Maybe she’s just a big fan of Italian food.”

“No way,” Kara says. “No woman who looks like that would put something in her mouth that wasn’t clearly marked gluten-free and vegan. Give me your phone.”

Alex rolls her eyes dramatically as she elbows it over. “Tell me again how you’re totally over Siobhan.”

“Oral sex isn’t a moral issue!” Kara takes a decisive breath while she unlocks her sister’s phone with practiced ease. “Whatever. Water under the bridge.”

“Uh-huh.”

“A love for pasta also doesn't explain why I heard this woman answer a call yesterday with a different name than the one that’s on her credit card,” Kara points out, before snapping a quick picture through the porthole window.

“Okay, now you’re being creepy,” Alex says.

“Shut up,” Kara tells her. “I’m texting Winn.”

Kara eyes the woman at the counter while she waits for his reply. The subject of her suspicion—Lena, she’d called herself on the phone; Tess Mercer, it had said on her mastercard—twists a soft-looking lock of dark hair around her finger as she studies their menu. The way the sunlight sets it ablaze almost makes Kara take a second picture, purely for its artistic merit.

Alex dabs at her onion-induced tears with the cuff of her sleeve. “Let it go, Kara,” she sighs.

“Let it go? Let it—” Kara whirls back to face her, throwing her hands up in frustration. “Do you want The Tower to end up like Winn and James’ steakhouse? Or are you fine with getting swindled by this—this… villain?”

“Of course not.” Alex looks at her like she’s stupid. “But even if this woman is your so-called ‘food influencer’, what do you suggest we do about it? It’s not as if we can bully her into giving us a fair review.”

Kara squares her jaw and sets her fists firmly on her hips. “No,” she declares, her tone grim. “But we can teach her a little about journalistic integrity.” She blows at a lock of hair that’s fallen in her face. “And also, possibly, credit card fraud.”

Alex narrows her eyes at her. “Kara,” she warns, putting down her knife. Her voice is low and cautious, as if she’s talking to the rowdy raccoon that moved into their dumpster three weeks ago instead of to her baby sister. “Let’s just take a breath and think about this for a m—”

Kara is already gone, the doors to the kitchen swinging closed behind her. Sliding into the cluttered space behind the counter, she crosses her arms and then drops her elbows on the bar, leaning what she belatedly realizes is probably a little too close to her adversary. She’s close enough to make out the individual downy hairs on her chin and the lines in her painted lips, which are still pursed thoughtfully in what Kara is sure would look like an attractive pout to someone who didn’t know any better.

But Kara knows so much better.

“Let me guess,” she remembers to get out, much less biting than originally intended. “Today you’ll be having the fifth entrée down the list.”

As soon as their eyes meet over the miniscule amount of space left between them, Kara knows leaning in was a fatal mistake. Her nemesis blinks up at her with wide, startled eyes that remind Kara of the glass pebbles she finds on the beach on her morning walks, not-quite-blue and not-quite-green, and for a moment Kara’s brain sputters out as if someone abruptly turned off the flames that kept it cooking.

But the woman recovers fast, like the scheming scoundrel that she is. She guiltily shutters her eyes behind thick, charcoal lashes, and Kara’s temper revives at the observation that her enemy isn’t as good of an actress as she thinks she is.

“I’ve actually been thinking of breaking my own rule,” she says, with a smile that lands somewhere between self-deprecating and apologetic. “I may give in and order the same thing you served me yesterday.” Kara goes hot all over with righteous indignation at the rich timbre of the woman’s voice, the almost flirtatious lilt it takes on when she adds, “I haven’t been able to stop dreaming about it.”

Kara pulls back a little in an effort to escape that curious gaze, the enticing scent of the woman’s perfume. It’s sweet enough to drown out even Alex’s mountain of onions. “I know what you’re doing,” she blusters.

The—frankly unfairly beautiful—soulless grifter stares at her, stricken. “I’m—I’m sorry?”

“You should be,” Kara says. “I know who you are.” And then, as if she’s putting down the last card in a game of Uno, “Lena.”

The woman goes very still for a moment, and then the corners of her lips tug down in a bitter semblance of a smile. “I see,” she says. She’s rigid, regal; she’s royalty perched on a wobbly wooden stool. “And am I to assume that’s enough for you to turn down my patronage?”

Kara’s resolve wobbles, too. She hadn’t expected her adversary—Lena, she now knows—to roll over so easily. “Well, yeah, obviously,” she flusters, her energy suddenly too large and lumbering in the face of Lena’s deference. “Winn and James are family.”

“Family.” There’s a flicker of wistfulness in Lena’s voice, before confusion colors her features. “So the cold shoulder,” she says. “It’s personal?”

Kara scoffs. The fraudster doesn’t even remember the names of her latest victims. Typical. “It was their steakhouse that you razed to the ground last month,” Kara reminds her.

Lena blinks at her. “The establishment just up the road?” She raises a critical eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure they set themselves up for failure when they decided to name their restaurant Misteak.”

Kara huffs. Her air quotes are appropriately vicious when she says, “They were doing just fine before your slanderous ‘review’ went viral.”

Lena does a remarkably convincing impression of someone who is genuinely flabbergasted. “I don’t even know what that means.”

“Liar.”

Lena’s shocked laughter is bright but brief. It’s the first time Kara has heard her laugh. It’s maddeningly attractive and deeply annoying.

“Okay,” Lena says. She folds her arms in front of her chest and leans back a little in her seat, unaware of its delicate disposition. A smirk tugs at one corner of her mouth. “Tell me,” she says, her eyes narrowing. “Who do you think I am, exactly?”

Kara leans in close again, refusing to allow Lena to get the upper hand. She’d like to wipe that smirk from Lena’s face—manually, if need be—preferably, even, if it means she’d get to smudge that infuriatingly immaculate lipstick with her thumb—

“You,” Kara charges, in an effort to drown out that unhelpful thought, “are a fraud. You call yourself a ‘mystery food critic’ on TikTok, but really you’re blackmailing businesses into buying a favorable review.”

“Hey, um.” Alex has followed her out of the kitchen, holding her phone. “So. Winn texted back, and he says—”

But Lena laughs again, her guarded posture melting down to unmistakable relief. “I’m so sorry,” she says, her voice a high warble. “That sounds awful. And also extremely illegal. Have you reported this person to the authorities? I can get you in touch with an excellent lawyer, if you’d like.”

Kara doesn’t know if she feels more outraged or confused.

…Or possibly some secret third thing.

“So you’re telling me—” Kara barks out a disbelieving laugh. “You’re saying you’re not her.”

“This, ehm— Tic Tac person?” When Lena’s dark lashes flutter, something in Kara’s chest flutters too. “No.”

Impossible. “Then why have you been in here every day this week?” Kara interrogates, the full force of evidence she’s collected behind it. “When neither one of us has seen you here even once, since we opened?”

Alex rolls her eyes. “I told you I wasn’t sure whether I’d seen her here before,” she points out. “Also, Winn says—”

“Oh please,” Kara scoffs, her eyes fixed on Lena, who has propped her elbows on the counter again, closer now than she’d been the last time their eyes met. “As if you could forget a woman as beautiful as—” Kara’s gaze drops to Lena’s mouth, unbidden, when Lena parts those rude, ruby lips. “...You.”

Alex stares.

Kara swallows.

Lena blinks; two times fast, and then again, after a beat, slow and sticky, her eyes darkening.

“So you may as well come out with it,” Kara croaks out what little remains of her anger. “There’s something you want more than our fettuccine.”

Lena’s cheeks have turned a treacherously charming shade of pink. “I suppose you’re right about that one, at least,” she admits after a beat.

In Kara’s peripheral vision, Alex frantically slides her hand across her throat. Kara frowns at her, telegraphing a wordless what is your problem but finding no satisfactory answer in the crimson shade her sister’s face has taken on.

“Yeah, well,” she says, almost disappointed, fumbling to fill the space left by Lena’s confession. “I’m telling you right now that it’s never going to happen.”

Alex clears her throat with startling force. “Winn wants to know,” she says, reading from her phone, “Who’s the hot chick?”

When Kara returns her gaze to the woman on the other side of the counter, she gulps. Lena is somehow even closer than she was before. She’s also fully propping herself up now on the laminate surface between them, granting Kara a glimpse of freckled cleavage that in no possible universe could be interpreted as unintentional.

“So,” Lena drawls. “What you’re saying is you’re not going to give me your number?”

Kara’s throat is suddenly very dry.

“Huh?” she manages, but only just barely.

“I was hoping,” Lena says slowly, that maddening smirk once again tugging up the corner of her mouth, “that you’d maybe like to—”

Lena shifts in her seat, crossing her legs in what is bound to become a devastatingly seductive pose, but the barstool decides in exactly that moment that's it’s finally had enough. Lena yelps as it gives out beneath her with a dramatic snap, one of its rickety limps flying across the floor as if celebrating its first taste of freedom, and Kara’s never considered herself to be very quick, but here she is anyway, on the other side of the counter in what feels like less than a second, one hand gripping Lena’s forearm, the other slipping smoothly around her waist.

“—fuck,” Lena gasps up at her. She feels good, in Kara’s hands, slight but pleasantly heavy, like the santoku knife Alex has forbidden Kara from touching ever again. “Well,” Lena says. “That’s. Perhaps not the way I would have phrased it, especially in front of your friend—”

They both glance over at Alex, but she’s disappeared, the swaying of the kitchen doors the only indication she was ever there.

“O-kay,” Kara says.

Lena grins. “Okay?”

Kara mentally rewinds the conversation and feels her ears burn at the realization of what she just agreed to. “I mean,” she amends. “We could, maybe, grab something to eat first?”

Something devious sparks in Lena’s terrifyingly gorgeous face. She glances down at Kara’s arms before blinking back up at her again and smirking. “I thought you already had.”

And, goodness gracious.

Kara is about to be in so much trouble.

[intotheelliwoods]

I cast “Become a Tot” on Poptart

Well- if you insist-

[sungtaro]

it's killing me to know there's someone else 🌹

[kinos-fortress-2]

this is what the mind of someone insane looks like

[weisbrot]

Dear @vivalamusaine thank you endlessly for your patronage and sweet encouraging tags! 🥹💛 please enjoy this enjolras in the musaine ehehe as a token of my love

[cleolinda]

Currently dealing with the idea that I have hypermobile joints and possibly mild HSD, gonna have to ask my doctor about this, but I pitched this idea to my physical therapy guy and he said, in the most deadpan tone possible, “Would you believe that I am not surprised by this.” And then I remembered this man has seen me casually touch my heel to the opposite hipbone just because I felt like stretching that leg. While having a herniated disc. And lying down. The reason it matters is that I wobble all over the place and it affects my ~Form in doing these exercises correctly for my back. So now that we have this hypothesis, we’re paying attention to this and working on things to strengthen various muscles so I fall over less while, say, just standing still.