#they gave him a middle parting!

[brauthaalandfc]

Erling for GQ magazine

[enduracarrotchips]

modern link

[superemeralds]

the ultimate fit

[smile-files]

the alliance........ from left to right: baseball, suitcase, nickel, and balloon!

(i was trying to find a way to represent balloon's name and i came upon a lucky medium: given how he was a jerk in ii1 and nickel continued to see him as such, i imagine he'd just call him "bully" from then on, even after they became friends -- and it sounds like the word "balloon", no?)

[bitchthefuck1]

you know what, I actually will talk about this because it's bothering me. The issue with focussing so heavily on syd and carmy's potential for a romantic relationship isn't that there's something inherently unintellectual about romance or whatever, it's that a lot of people seem incapable of doing that without immediately flattening the story and ignoring or intentionally misreading any and all nuance for the sake of that romance. Every scene suddenly becomes about how it impacts their relationship, every analysis is done through a romantic lens, every frame or line of dialogue becomes about finding some easter egg or hint that "proves" these people should start dating. Their dynamic is absolutely a fundamental part of this show, but if you can only see it as a will-they-won't-they, you miss so much of what the story is actually trying to say with these two.

There are good versions of this story where their relationship is romantic and there are good versions of this story where it isn't, but as soon as you decide them being together is "the point," you lose the ability to actually judge the story for what it is, not what you want it to be.

[hauntingblue]

ARCANE DAY

Episode 4 and 5 in the tags and:

SALO BEING A VIKTOS FOLLOWER??? CRAZY. ALSO BOTH VIKTOR MISSING JAYCE AJDHSKSJ also cait has kinda calmed down... and I am sure she misses vi so I KNOW this is going to happen to her soon.... we aren't getting much of her feelings yet... she's still too onto Jinx to catch up on where ambessa is going...

DID JAYCE JUST KILL SALO??? WHAT HAPPENED IN THERE

Also vander not recognizing vi at first until she gives up fighting.... incredible ALSO vander and silco being miners and vi wearing her gauntlets that were initially thought out for miners.... damn

This is my favourite episode so far....

Episode 6 here:

Sky really being there..... of course she is....

Ambessa training caitlyn.... of course thats her new daughter akdjskms Tunnels in your eyes.... GIRL!!!!!!! THAT'S WHAT YOU DON'T NEED RIGHT NOW also the guy outside is a mage... ambessa is such a hypocrite

Vi and Jinx vs ambessa and cait.... this was always about class war don't get it twisted SINGED!!! TRAITOR!!!!

ARE THEY GOING TO SEE VIKTOR???? I looove how viktors touch on their faces leave "scars" so recognizable

Did isha just take the gem from vi's gauntlets??? Omg I wasn't expecting viktor to build a hippie commune to be honest omg he looks so good.... with the blonde underhairs.... and I do believe that's the same blanket....

And of course viktor knows who vander is.... nvm he diesnt know omg viktor asking for Powder.....

We are getting viktor horsegirl montage.... omg the vander momtage I can't..... omg they wanna stay.... singed is gonna fuck all this up NOOOOO 😭😭😭 they are already there I am going to kms

CAITLYN STOP THIS MADESSS!!! ✋️ CAITLYN!!!!! VI KILL THIS MAN!!! OMG CAITLYN...... mongoose... yeah.... and fuck you too.... CUPCAKE!!!! ABOUT TIME!!!! CAITLYN I SAID STOP THIS MADNESS WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!!! And jayce too 😭😭😭 we're never making it out of the fissures

It's such a shame the spit on here won't work like on challengers.... one can only pray I guess

Jinx experiencing the "there's nothing more undoing as a daughter" moment.... incredible

"Your absence provided a vacuum I was able to fill" TO VI???? I KNEW THAT HAND HOLDING IN THE COMMANDER SCENE WAS SUS AKDHKASJ maddie exists and ambessa knows that and still.... it was not filling her mother's void...

YES CAITLYN!!! YES!!!!! VI is so hot I am distracted... ambessa was right.... now what the fuck will jayce fuck up??? Thats the question... NOT ANOTHER CHILD!!! jayce is a menace... the guys smiling at jayce are viktor... maybe the child even....

JINX KILL THAT MAN!!! NVM VANDER KILL THAT MAN!!! JAYCE YOU FUCKING MORON!!!!! JAYCEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE WHEN I GET YOU JAAAYCEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Isha what are you going to do omg 😭😭 did she kill vander... another powder... my god another week...

That was such a good fucking episode too.... and caitlyn didn't go insane when finding Jinx that is a step forwards but viktor can't be dead... no fucking way... he was giving himself away for the people and he was going to finally die by saving vander and look at what we got... no wonder viktor hates his guts. Jayce you were so good in act one.... what happened..... alright. Christ.... another week....

[nevermindigotthis]

Some little doodles about my thoughts on some of Cal‘s hairstyles in Jedi Survivor. My favourite was Choppy Forward, which isn’t featured here. In order of appearance the hairstyles are: bun, windswept, hawk, mullet, slicked back, middle part and headband. Which one was your favourite? Do you agree with the vibes?

[thegoldenavenger]

i got tired so fast drawing this :( anyways, for The Grand Unified Theory of Shěn Qīngqiū for one of the beginning chapters.

[tacagen]

OKAY MY NEWFOUND AGENT BISHOP TMNT AUDIENCE. ANY THOUGHTS ON WHY THERE ARE

two of them?????

[beaversatemygrandma]

Interview. Interview. Oh Another interview. Interview. Interview. Guess what's next? An interview that a manager is like "Today at 2pm sound good?" which I took bc yeah, it was good...

I'm tired.

Now will ANY OF THEM ACTUALLY Call Me Back???

[matamisin]

get a load of this lil guy

[anon-apple]

Hot Soup and Soft Bread 6

Table of Contents and Synopsis <- Chapter 5 Read this chapter on WordPress

Chapter 6: Chocomonts VI

T/N: Cunqu talks about his past. It sucks. The chapter ends really cute I promise but first :') ... Content warning! Suicide, mental illness, brief description of dead body, general sad vibes

That night, Cunqu once again made an exception for Qiuyan to spend the night in his room before leaving in the morning. It wasn’t convenient to call for a cab at that hour. Qiuyan rolled around this way and that in his bed, half awake and half drunk. Cunqu sighed and said: “I need to change the sheets tomorrow.”

This time, he lay down next to Qiuyan and turned on the Anpanman nightlight.

Qiuyan, lying on his side, reached out and twirled Cunqu’s hair around his fingers. He mumbled: “My childhood friend Da Yu has worked at a hair salon for two years now, but he still only knows how to wash hair. He wanted to practice on me, but I don’t dare…” He talked for a while about this, then started to explain the difference between the passengers he encountered on his day shifts versus the ones from his night shifts. “The morning shift, wow, the ones who get on all tap their senior citizen transit cards. The Liu Xiaoyings of the world are all getting up at this hour to go to the produce market. Or they’re taking the bus to take advantage of the air conditioning. It’s gotten quite hot recently…”

Qiuyan prattled on like a broken record by himself, his eyelid slowly drifting lower and lower as if he would fall asleep the next moment. Then he opened his eyes again and pulled lightly on Cunqu’s hair, saying: “When I was a kid Qiu Xuemei[1] found someone to read my fortunes. They said I was suited for a job where I wouldn’t quit until I die. So after I started driving buses, Qiu Xuemei said, look, it turned out to be true.”

Qiuyan’s tugging hurt Cunqu’s scalp, so he batted away his hand. The former reached out again to play with his hair. Cunqu said: “The first year I stayed here, Grandma invited every monk, priest, and Buddha she could.”

Qiuyan stopped his movements. Cunqu continued, “She didn’t used to believe in all that. She has a lot of trust in herself..”

The room fell silent; for a while, no one spoke. Cunqu pondered, was it finally time to pry open the scab and take a look at the injury underneath? Would he see a festered wound crawling with maggots? 

But that night, Cunqu was a lot more calm than he expected. He told Qiuyan what led to him hiding away. He said that he too had a childhood friend; his name was Jiang Langyu. Their parents were friends, so they were compared against each other ever since they were little. Because of that, their friendship was tainted with an unclear undertone. Later, they both went abroad to study. One went to the Netherlands, the other to the United States. During holidays, they’d meet up and travel together. It was only at that age that the two realized that they were truly good friends who shared the most similar circumstances. Jiang Liangyu knew what it was like to be raised by two parents so strict that it bordered on harshness. He knew what it was like to be weighed down by the expectations of numerous people. Liangyu joked once to Cunqu: “The first three years of our lives was the only timeout[2] we had. Ever since then, it doesn’t matter if we fell, if we bumped into something, or if we lost an arm or a leg. No matter what, our test scores have to be excellent across the board.” 

A few years ago, Cunqu joined a Japanese architecture studio after graduation. When there was a project at hand he was either flying all over the world or he was working overtime day and night in his studio. When Liangyu called him, Cunqu was too busy and fatigued to pick up. The day he finally returned the call, Liangyu mentioned he wanted to meet up. Cunqu took a look at his calendar and replied, “Let’s talk about it later.”

That month, his team messed up on a project. After that, they took on a few projects in China so he flew back. He reached out to Jiang Liangyu to finally meet up. However, on the day of, he buried himself like a madman in his work and forgot all about it. 

Cunqu asked Qiuyan: “Have you experienced this? A long, long time ago, your mother said something to you. And many years later, it still plays on repeat by your ear. It happens often to me. My mother once told me, ‘You don't have the right to stop if you are not good enough.’ And so on that day, I didn’t stop to go and meet Jiang Liangyu.”

When Cunqu woke up in front of his computer, Jiang Liangyu had already jumped into a lake near their meeting spot, taking his own life.

He heard that three divers went down to retrieve his body. When they brought him ashore, various aquatic plants hung from his face, and his skin was a pale purple. A rock was tied around both his feet; he had left no way out for himself. When Cunqu attended his funeral, he overheard people making comments. They said that Jiang Liangyu wasn’t sensible. They said that his parents had sacrificed so much to raise him, sacrificed so much for him.

Cunqu remembered the first time he met Liangyu when they were little. They sat on two sides of a small mushroom-shaped table in a foreign language class. Liangyu introduced himself as Jiang Liangyu. The teacher corrected him, saying: “No, your name is Terrence.”[3]

Across from that small table, Liangyu awkwardly smiled at him.

After that, Cunqu continued going to and fro his job as usual, working on the projects as he should. He realized he didn’t even have a moment to stop and grieve. His schedule was packed; his backlog of work was filled. He would never be able to stop. Until he too jumped into that lake.

On that day, he blanked out in front of the blueprint on his computer screen for a very long time. He stopped comprehending any of the words or numbers on the screen. He threw up. First, it was what he had eaten. Then it was bile, then blood.

He went to see a therapist. Qi Lanxiang[4] somehow got wind of that and flew to Japan to take care of him and accompany him to therapy. She pressed the prescribed medication into Cunqu’s hands, insisting it’s ok, everything will be ok after you take this, you’ll be able to work hard again.

Cunqu held the bag of medicine and did what he always had in the past twenty-some years of his life. He obediently nodded his head. 

Jiang Liangyu, no, your name is Terrence. I am also ok. I have a mental illness. I need to work hard even after taking this medicine. 

---

Cunqu smiled at Qiuyan. Qiuyan didn’t say anything for a moment. The piles of books in the room accompanied him in the loud silence. Qiuyan probably didn’t know what he could say to console Cunqu. He turned his head this way and that, then suddenly incoherently mumbled: “No wonder you think Chocomonts are the most delicious thing in the world. Probably because you never were allowed to eat any yummy snacks when you were little.”

Cunqu laughed, protesting: “Chocomonts are delicious.”

Qiuyan also laughed. Cunqu held the Anpanman nightlight and rotated it in his hands. He took a deep breath, saying: "After saying all that…I’m realizing it’s not such a big deal after all."

Qiuyan hugged Cunqu’s head and swayed from side to side: “Gege, want hug[5]. Us humans, we don’t really need to work that hard. When the time comes, your tombstone won’t be engraved with ‘City-recognized good student’ or ‘World-class excellent architect.’ At most, you’ll get a pair of verses[6]. For me, my tombstone will have ‘Hahahaha’ carved into it. Then whenever someone reads it, they’ll have to go ‘hahaha.’”

Cunqu couldn’t help but actually “hahaha” out loud. Qiuyan also “hahaha”-ed with him. He laughed for a while. Then he let go of his hands, his gaze locking with Cunqu’s. The fragmented rays of the nightlight fell between them, dotting freckles of shadows on their faces. They looked away at the same time. Light and shadows swayed. Qiuyan’s head spun. Abruptly, he leaned in and kissed Cunqu on the cheek.

-> Chapter 7

Footnote

[1] Zhong Qiuyan’s mother [2] The term used here to refers specifically to time-outs called due to an injury during a sports match. [3] Terrence was in English in the raws [4] Zhou Cunqu’s mother  [5] Qiuyan literally says “hug hug” which is what you say when you are requesting to be hug/be hugged. It’s very baby/kiddo talk and frequently used by kids, to kids, or when you’re deliberately acting kiddo/spoiled haha.  [6] A couplet specifically written for funerals or mourning. Written vertically on a pair of banners. 

[milkbreadtoast]

im still not satisfied w his design but some oc doodles... tests...

[filurig]

one of my oldest (irl not in universe) fellaws. hasnt had a ref in a few years so i fixed dat

[gilliontidestriderchampionoftheu]

i get they were pressed for time by the time they left the promise bastion but i cant believe they didnt go to the crescent chain before the hole in the sea </333

[exsqueezememacaroni]

I was finally organizing the last things from the attic and....oh fuck, oh shit, the fucking nostalgia is hitting me like a ton of mid-2000s bricks.