#I'm ALSO burned out now

[olessan]

I drew these for 2023, last year, as part of an intended silly set of 4, burned out and never finished the other two, so I'm posting them now for end of 2024 2025 a year late, before I forget again. lmao

Couple of OCs being egotistical re: the poisonous berry garland

[ameliathornromance]

A part of you was unsure how your Orc Boyfriend would react. As you pruned the bouquet of flowers in your hands, you were starting to regret your idea. It was only a few paces from the camp now, surely you could just turn back around and throw it away, right?

Flowers were something that women received typically. Maybe he would think you were insinuating something about him, or that maybe he was weaker than you thought he was-

“Love! You’re back!”

Too late for take backs now. Hiding the bouquet behind your back, you watched as your Orc Boyfriend dropped a wood chopping axe and rushed over to you. “How was your walk? Did you get what you needed?”

You weren’t sure why you thought you could hide the flowers from him. He was at least two or three feet taller than you.

He peered over your shoulder and raised an eyebrow. “What’re those for? You’ve never brought flowers back before.”

Well, now or never, you thought. Meekly, you pulled them out from behind your back and held them out to him.

Your Orc stared at you for a minute, looking you up and down in confusion. “I… Um…” Where did you even begin with this? You must look insane.

Sighing, you lowered the bouquet and looked down at the different blooms. “When humans really like each other, sometimes they give flowers. So, I picked some flowers for you.”

There was silence for a moment and you felt your face burning. You knew it, this was a stupid idea.

“You picked these… for me?” His green hand came into view, wrapping around your interlocked fingers.

You nodded, still not looking at him.

Before you could stop him, he had snatched up the bouquet and held it high above his head. He bellowed to his others in the camp: “Look here! My lovely lady brought me flowers! What have you suckers got?!”

Orcs from their various work stations looked up, growled, snarled and swatted their hands at your Orc, “get stuffed you lug!”

Your jaw hung open at your Orc's audacity, before he looked back down at you and gave you the widest grin. “I didn’t know humans did such a thing,” he admired the flowers in his hand, seemingly as big as daisies in his huge hand. “You picked these yourself?”

“Wait, you like them?”

“Why wouldn’t I like them love?” Your Orc kissed you on the forehead. “You went out of your way to get them for me.”

“It’s just… I thought… Human men don’t normally get flowers, so I thought that…”

Your Orc let out a bark of laughter, “but I’m not human, am I love?” He pulled you into his arms and squeezed you tightly. His arms were the most reassuring and calming thing at that moment.

Hugging him back, you realised that there had been nothing to be afraid of. How could you have assumed that he would have been insulted by your gift?

“Anything from you is something to be treasured.” He mumbled to you, giving you another kiss on your lips.

Patreon

[screwpinecaprice]

I was trying to eat noodles neatly and for some reason I got sad midway. So I drew them messy eating a biscuit and a strawberry to combat sad noodle blues.

[bluehairperson]

I had to.

Original tweet here.

[autisticandroids]

CASTIEL: Stop. What's the point if you don't mean it? You fear me - not love, not respect, just fear.

[youtube with closed captions]

a godstiel pity party. i'd like to thank an anon i got way back in february of 2021.

[thelilylav]

We only see each other at funerals

(On Jason, Thalia, Nico, Bianca, and their parallels/connections)

The Titan's Curse (Rick Riordan), @/anxiousmaya_, Right Now (Gracie Abrams), The Battle of the Labyrinth (Rick Riordan), Joan of Arc (Mary Gordon), The Lost Hero (Rick Riordan), Episodes Toward and Elegy for Halley's Comet (Lindsey Drager), Jason Grace (Riordan Wiki), The Gods Show Up (Michael Kinnucan), The House of Hades (Rick Riordan), What the Living Do (Marie Howe), The House of Hades (Rick Riordan), Planet of Love (Richard Siken), The Blood of Olympus (Rick Riordan), Tangerine (Nolune), The Blood of Olympus (Rick Riordan), The Blood of Olympus (Rick Riordan), I Bet On Losing Dogs (Mitski), The Burning Maze (Rick Riordan), @/abhorarchive (Twitter), The Burning Maze (Rick Riordan), Seventeen (MARINA), The Burning Maze (Rick Riordan), @/rollercoasterwords, The Tyrant's Tomb (Rick Riordan), @/the-overanalyst, Where Things Come Back (John Corey Whaley), Grit (Silas Denver Martin), Softcore (The Neighbourhood), The Tower of Nero (Rick Riordan), Frost (Mitski), @/moonbends, I'm Your Man (Mitski), Sun Bleached Flies (Ethel Cain), The Tower of Nero (Rick Riordan), Three (Sleeping At Last), My Art

[creations-by-chaosfay]

If you're interested in textile art, please understand it will not end at one of the arts. Interested in weaving? There are many different types, so now you're learning about the culture these styles come from, and with that comes learning about their clothing. Now you're interested in learning how to sew clothing, and much of it has some kind of embroidery. So you do research and see how beautiful it is, and different types of embroidery exist. You decide to learn embroidery and get curious about lace because often they're seen together.

Prepare for a journey and get real good at organizing. You'll soon lose space because of supplies and tools.

[burningcheese-merchant]

I’m so confused? I thought you liked burning spice but then you say that their reasons for turning evil are bullshit??

I do. I adore Burning Spice, he's my babygirl lol. I can like characters and disagree with their actions and ideals at the same time. Joker is fucking reprehensible in every way possible, but he's still the best Batman villain, if that helps it make more sense

Let me explain what I really mean when I say his reason for evil is bullshit. I don't really mean to deny or downplay his feelings at all. The existential crisis he probably had as a consequence of his job is a valid one to have. I don't REALLY know what caused him to fold for sure - none of us do, all we really have is "I'm tired of history's unending cycle", everything else I've said about him is educated guess with a sprinkling of projection - but if anything in my personal thoughts and analyses are true, then it's reasonable to a degree. Being born and burdened with great responsibility that you never wanted/asked for sucks. Sacrificing your time and effort over and over again only for that to be tarnished sucks. Working hard to build something only for it to inevitably be torn down sucks. Becoming attached to people, only to have to watch them suffer and die and leave you alone again while you stay the same, sucks. It really does. I'm not trying to take that away from the man, if that's really what afflicts him.

It's bullshit to me solely because it is what drives him to hurt people. Whatever is eating him, getting his goat, keeping him awake at night, however you want to put it, stopped mattering the minute he allowed it to influence him to commit atrocities. I don't care if all your friends are dead. I don't care if your town was decimated by the four horsemen of the apocalypse. I don't care if you have glass bones and paper skin. Your suffering does not justify the suffering of others. Whatever unfortunate circumstances you go through in life, regardless of whether or not they're your fault, are ultimately your responsibility. Burning Spice does not get to chop people up with his axe because he's bored with life. Burning Spice does not get to use unarmed civilians as soldiers/cannon fodder (that is an actual, real world war crime. People have been imprisoned and even hanged for shit like that) because he struggles with the cynicism and sense of futility history often curses people with. Burning Spice does not get to stalk, kidnap, beat, imprison, torture and mutilate a woman (who is barely half his size and who has never done anything to him) he's obsessed with because he resents his creators for forcing him to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders, or because he watched people and civilizations rise and fall around him constantly regardless of what he did about it, or because he woke up on the wrong side of his throne. Everything before he hurt and killed people is an explanation. Everything AFTER that is an excuse.

And please, I'm begging everyone to not go "but immortality sucks". I have evolved past that concept and no longer agree with it. Immortality does not inherently suck. I have said this before and I will say it again: we have a plethora of immortal characters in the Cookie Run universe who do not have that attitude about it. Does Wind Archer winge about protecting the forest forever? No. Do Sugar Swan and Millennial Tree lament having to watch over time and the cycle of seasons forever? No. Did Moonlight go insane and go out killing people after the wizards left her to guard their city forever? No. Fire Spirit, Sea Fairy, Frost Queen, Sherbet. None of them regret the lives they live. They all have their issues, but none of them involve disliking immortality (and three of the ones I mentioned used to be mortal). Life is only, ultimately, what YOU decide to make of it. Time passing and people getting old and dying does not and should not dimish either one's worth. This attitude comes from a fundamental lack of understanding and appreciation for life, nature and other people, and everything they have to offer (which Burning Spice clearly has, even Golden Cheese called him out on it to his face lol). It is selfish and short-sighted.

Burning Spice, as far as he's demonstrated, never cared about anyone or anything except himself. He is entirely self-serving and actively punishes and persecutes whatever does not satisfy his ephemeral desires. His gripes about boredom are childish and immature. If he was that unhappy with life and immortality, then he would go ahead and fucking kill himself. "I wonder what it would take to destroy me" brother, YOU are what it would take to destroy you. Cut your own head off. Slit your wrists. Make yourself a nice rope necklace, you must've picked that skill up at SOME point in the millennia you've existed. But no. He doesn't do that, because he doesn't REALLY hate being alive, he only hates that life does not bow to his whims 24/7. ALL the Beasts seem like that to me. Narcissistic, cowardly hypocrites.

Very well, you couldn't handle the power and responsibility bestowed upon you. Give it back and fuck off. Have some dignity and humility and admit that You Don't Got It. The Ancients have proven that there are people who do. Step down and let them take charge. Or don't, I guess. Be a miserable asshole and make everyone around you miserable assholes, too. Make everyone else suffer for your moral and spiritual failings. Because it was never really about your traumas or regrets, was it. It stopped being about that a long time ago. Now it's just about you wanting to impose your will onto others and make them pay for mistakes they never made. Because you crumbled in the face of adversity and gave in to despair. Isn't it, Shadow Milk. Isn't it, Mystic Flour. Isn't it, Burning Spice.

With all of that said, however... I do still love him lol. I love his design. I love his voice (I turned the English audio back on just for Spice, I usually have the Japanese audio on otherwise bc I don't like most of the English voices and lots of characters share Japanese voices with anime characters I love). I love his personality, as horrible as it is. I love his little animations. I love how he interacts with Golden Cheese (inside and outside of shipping context). And I love the storytelling potential I sincerely believe exists within him and his character. That is the double-edged sword that comes with him: there's not enough for us to fully understand him, thus risking him appearing boring (ironic) and one-dimensional, but there's just enough that also allows us to fill in that gap with ideas of our own, and walk down paths we and others may find interesting. Me personally, I've been exploring what it would be like both for Spice to descend into absolute, hellish insanity and depravity without caution or remorse (Yandere Spice/Yandere Beasts AU), and how he might grapple with the concepts of guilt, atonement and forgiveness, what + how long it might take to gain/achieve each one, how it may ultimately influence his personality and view of the world, and his interactions with others during and after a redemption arc (Reformed Beasts AU, which I WILL post about soon, I'm almost done outlining each Beast's arc, let me finish cooking plz). Plenty of other people have their own takes on the little dude, too, as well as those others four bozos. And I'm certain we all agree that they're horrifically awful as people, but we find them cute and entertaining and even sympathize with them to some degree anyway.

I love Burning Spice. He's not my favorite character, that title is split between 2 others, but I still love him. He's still my babygirl. If he was real, I'd call for him to be shot and that's it, because that's all people like him deserve in the real world. But he isn't, he's a little cookie guy from a dumb phone game, so I'm allowed to condemn his behavior while also wanting to pet him, and scratch his little head, and hold him in my hands, and give him little smoochies, and have him sit on my shoulder while I work or cook or whatever, and poke his chest to see how soft his little buff man tiddies really are (and risk getting my fingers cut off for it probably)

I'm sorry if I confused you or anyone else. Wasn't trying to do that. I hope what I've said here makes some amount of sense. Take this apology ice cream regardless 🍦

[sysig]

Ellen McLain’s commentary from my trivia playthrough

[danwhobrowses]

So there was a Callowmoore question on 4SD which has got people talking and since nobody will ask me about it I'm gonna get it out of my brain anyway.

For someone on 4SD as frequently as Taliesin, Callowmoore questions are rare and I think that partly comes from us fans not wanting to try and steer him but also because his answers tend to be complicated. He's quite plain with other stuff, but a lot also gets offered into interpretation when it comes to Ashton and Fearne.

And granted, we Callowmoores would love for him to pull a Liam and just up and say Ashton has feelings for her, but I think we all know that's not Tal's way; aside from the nuggets of wisdom, killer one-liners and unique homebrews, we tend to love Tal's characters for their actions and expressions, some of which subtle and rewarding to those paying attention. For this reason I have had to mull over this one minute answer for most of my day and figure out what I think he means by it, like blue curtains in a book.

To note though, 'I think' is the operative term, but I also don't believe that Tal has left Callowmoore better or worse by his response.

One of the interesting things I want to point out is that my interpretations are observing the divide between Taliesin's words and his roleplaying; it is not to say that Tal is being dishonest in his answers, but I also see it as the answers are what Ashton thinks and his roleplay is how they feel.

So no, Ashton isn't 'precious' about Fearne wandering off when sleeping beside each other, if she said no or came back safely it wouldn't have bothered them, and it's fair for Ashton to have preferred Fearne to have woke them up. And yet that doesn't deny the reaction Ashton had waking up to find her gone and fearing that she's in danger, and not there to help her; the panic, the anger, the impatience are all clear and instinctive reactions Ashton is having that imply that her being with them is important. They're not precious about Fearne waking up and leaving the bed before they wake, and yet they'll still smile upon waking and finding that she's still there.

The 'Adventurers with Benefits' is one of two comments I can see being used maliciously against shippers, but it's worth reminding that on the last Callowmoore question Tal was asked, he mentioned that Ashton doesn't believe that someone would love them. Ashton feels unlovable, and yet they still ask for intimacy with Fearne, leaning further into their connection but also not pressuring her into commitment. It's also worth pointing out that this is still a slow burn, even Jester questioned whether her feelings for Fjord were legitimate or a romanticized fantasy at one point, and Ashton is not privy to Fearne's feelings for them. Ashton frames it as Adventurers with Benefits because they don't allow themselves to entertain the idea of Fearne reciprocating feelings for them, and yet their impulse to kiss her before absorbing the shard, to frequently engage in physical contact at a growing rate, to playfully steal and share each other's clothing, the desire to defend her from harm or anyone that might have ulterior motives, and to willingly do anything and everything just for her to smile in their direction again, that paints more of a picture than just benefits.

Which finally gets us to Ashton's theory of love. Tal mentions that Ashton believes that love is 'wanting to trust somebody, but not trusting them'. Immediately: No, haters, I don't think this means Ashton doesn't trust Fearne, nor do I think it means that Ashton trusts Fearne so they don't love her. Ashton trusts all the Hells (well, maybe not Braius since they just met), but Fearne is special to them in a different way, they've already platonically said that they loved her when they first were using their titan forms. In addition, this could be an elaboration of the last time Tal brought up Ashton's opinion of Love on the post-shard Callowmoore question: 'love is ignorance and adorableness'. This is another thing that can develop, elaborate and/or change over time, but at the current moment Ashton's interpretation of love can come from environment; Imogen wants to trust Laudna but can't wholly trust her given Delilah, but even Ashton can see that they love each other. Tal also mentioned that Ashton is not very experienced in relationships - which kinda plays into my belief that Ashton and Fearne, while have had relationships, haven't had deep romantic feelings or proper intimacy before, which makes them discovering it with each other more special - so their understanding of love can only exist on what they assume it's like.

And yet what if you reworded the phrase in the same spirit? 'Love is trusting someone wholeheartedly even with nothing to reassure it', there have been many a time something looked to go south and faith was put in another anyway; the shard may be a bad example because it did go wrong but even though the red flags were there Ashton upon completing the process said 'thank you for trusting me', when Fearne took the shard Ashton was a bag full of panic their experience meant they couldn't trust that the shard wouldn't be just as bad for Fearne, and yet they still wanted to trust that Fearne would succeed. Ashton couldn't trust that whenever Fearne was wild shaped, cornered by Otohan, or taken away by Ira on Ruidus that she'd come back safe, and yet still wanted to trust that she would, Ashton couldn't confirm that Fearne wasn't a Doppelganger in Nanna Mori's trust trial - even when FCG and Imogen suspected it was her - and yet they still wanted to trust that it was her. Ashton's view on love may not be entirely right but it's not entirely wrong either, what is blind faith if not ignorant and adorable? Even with their interpretation, Ashton has put plenty of faith in Fearne even when the risk was high.

In conclusion, Ashton's behaviour towards Fearne do often imply a complexity rather than a discrepancy to Tal's 4SD statements, that maybe Ashton's emotions and subconscious are not in sync with their self-doubt driven thoughts, perhaps it is the way Ashton tempers their feelings to try and not get hurt by them or cause Fearne to get hurt by them again. Ashton's apology to her post-shard made a point of noting how she means a lot to them, and how hurting her was one of the worst things they have done, and as they work towards self-improvement and self-discovery, there will likely be a point where self-realisation comes into play too, and they can understand why what they're thinking differs to how they're feeling.

Again, this is all interpretation, speculation and observation, one that like the core statements doesn't add or subtract but fills in some gaps either way. Ashton's feelings are a complicated matter, which is likely why Tal entices and creates such speculation with a complicated answer. Right now Ashton clearly does care for Fearne and share a special relationship that's regrowing after suffering tension, loss and fear, blooming back into trust, joy and comfort, but save 5 Disney Greek Muses backing him up in a Gospel song they're not just gonna out and say they're in love

And Yet...

[king-spite]

reading the (first?) Rinezha fight scene in TBG right now and the many parallels i'm seeing to Mareven is quite insane actually. if i had a nickel every time a rich guy and a lower-class girl fell in love and she became a sort of ally for him/his side/country only for him to betray her at the most unexpected moment -when his side no longer had any use for her anymore- and he later made it his sole purpose to try and capture her to convince her to join his side but since she absolutely loathes him she refuses and so he resorts to using a cruelty on her the likes of which he hadn't before because she was his weak spot and so their relationship is forever corrupted with no chance of going back to what they were. i'd have two nickels. which isn't much but it's weird that it happened twice.

[silverwiki]

(Naruto voice) these 2 freaks again.......

[stargazing-enby]

Can someone tell me to do it scared

[howdoyousleep3]

never in my life have i wanted a Daddy more than i do rn 😭

[anxiously-awaiting]

hi his outfit is a fucking MESS rn but <3 bedi alter for your thoughts

[ilovedthestars]

i have. too many things to do.