smallandsundry

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a soldier a goth and a biker walk into a bar

#shadowheart #karlach #lae'zel #baldur's gate 3 #shadowheart x lae'zel x karlach

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IronMan2! Black Widow but with her hair tied back

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cue it’s been 84 years.gif…..

but in all seriousness, happy early birthday @smallandsundry!!! pls have the first piece of art i’ve been able to finish this year 🥲

#fraaaannnnnn #thabk you this is incredible #bees schnees #rwby

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its official: tumblr is selling our data to Midjourney

we'd been hearing rumors about this for a bit but now its open and out there. some details from this article

it goes without saying, but if @staff goes through with this its going to be an utter shitshow and im all but certain the website will not survive it.

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What is this about the tumblr staff wanting to sell art data to midjourney?

An ex-colleague of mine mentioned yesterday that there may be contacts between Automattic and midjourney in that direction, but nothing is public yet and I don't have any more info. They probably won't have anything specific to share either, since they left the company weeks ago too. That being said:

I have no reason to doubt my ex-coworker word, they are a trustworthy person.

Tumblr's CEO has been absurdly enthusiastic (comically, even) about AI, and is a big fan of LLMs and 'AI' companies.

A deal with midjourney could solve tumblr financial issues (not the same company, but openAi is paying up to 5 million/year to news companies to use their content as training data... tumblr generates several orders of magnitude more content than any newspaper or any media company and it only would need a 20 to 30 million per year deal to be profitable)

So I don't have any extra info yet, but I'm keeping my ears open.

#well shit

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xena warrior princess and her magnificent thighs

#fiddle and i are also speeding through xena and the thighs have me in a chokehold

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(grishava and her gay longing that takes place after this,for @piratekane)

“Tell me about the stag.”

Beatrice’s voice is soft in the weak morning light, a gentle rumbling disruption to the way Ava had been almost lulled back to sleep by Beatrice’s even breaths, each inhale pressing her back just the slightest bit more firmly into Ava’s chest. She hadn't known Beatrice was awake and a moment of panic slices through her chest because Beatrice is awake and Ava is still pressed up against her back, one arm curled along her ribcage.

It's for the cold. For warmth. For safety after they both nearly froze to death. Ava repeats it in her head over and over, a prepared answer for the inevitable question, a reminder that Beatrice isn't hers to hold onto and it's only the deadly cold outside that allows her this close.

“What?” Ava’s a morning person, she’s discovered, since the grisha power that lived in her bones was finally let loose and the overpowering infirmity that had left her bedridden so often disappeared, but they’re half a day’s walk from civilization after a week of traipsing through the tundra and Beatrice is warm and solid in front of her, and Ava doesn’t want to move or talk or think yet.

“The stag.” Beatrice shifts, rolling onto her back and folding her hands formally over her stomach. She stares up at the ceiling and Ava fights the urge to whine at the disruption, curls her hand that had been resting lazily on Beatrice’s side up to tuck under her own chin to stop from reaching out and tracing the line of Beatrice’s profile. “The one you’re looking for.”

“The stag,” Ava echoes. She bites down on the inside of her cheek and busies herself with pulling the blankets higher up to her shoulders. Now that she’s not pushed up against Beatrice, forehead pressed between her shoulderblades after waiting until Beatrice slept to curl around her, the cold makes her shiver. They should get up and start the fire, start moving around the cabin, boil water to drink. They should talk about the fact that they were thrown together by an empty countryside and a cruel storm, a partnership for survival that could never last this close to civilization, a druskelle and the sun summoner.

They should part ways, Beatrice back north to the Fjerdan border, Ava on the hunt for the stag.

Ava burrows deeper under the blankets and stares at Beatrice’s profile. “I keep seeing it in my dreams,” she says after a moment. “It’s always somewhere in the permafrost, I think. It’s night, and the moon is full, and the stag is huge and alone and lit up by the moonlight.”

“Why do you need to find it?” Beatrice’s voice is calm, level. Calculating. The wolf’s head on her shoulder is dirtied and frayed from their hike through the wilderness, only recognizable because Ava knows what it is; it taunts Ava now, inches away, an inescapable barrier between them.

“It’s an amplifier,” Ava says softly. “If I can-- it’ll increase my power. Enough that I should be able to destroy the fold.”

“An amplifier.” Beatrice hums thoughtfully. “What happens when you tear down the fold?”

Ava frowns, her head aching. “People stop dying from it,” she says. “So many people have been killed by the volcra--”

“I meant for you,” Beatrice says. She finally moves, turning her head slowly until she can look squarely at Ava. “What happens to the sun summoner when the shadows are destroyed?”

Ava blinks owlishly, distracted by Beatrice’s sharp gaze and the freckles patterned across her cheekbones. “What do you mean?”

“Will you return to Os Alta, to the Second Army?” There’s a soft rustle of fabric, as if Beatrice’s hands had shifted where they’re folded over her stomach; Ava glances down towards them automatically, only to get caught on Beatrice’s mouth and the way she’s so close Ava swears she can feel the gentle exhales of her breathing against her own face.

“I don’t want to,” Ava says, and is surprised to realize she means it. “I never wanted to be a soldier. I want to get Diego and to-- to travel, to go to Ketterdam and Novyi Zem and the Wandering Isles. I want to see everything.”

“Not Fjerda?” There’s a rueful, almost teasing, lilt to Beatrice’s voice, but it does nothing to counter the quiet sad weight to her gaze.

“Fjerda doesn’t want someone like me.”

Beatrice’s mouth opens, and then closes. There’s another rustle of fabric, but this time Ava can’t be bothered to look away from the movement of Beatrice’s throat as she swallows, the way she wets lips that are chapped from the frigid cold they’ve been hiking through.

“Fjerda might,” Beatrice finally says. “Given the opportunity.”

Ava pushes up onto her elbow, regards Beatrice and the way she’s schooled her features into a placid mask, the way she’s spent every minute of every day in Beatrice’s immediate proximity for a week now and knows that when she’s faking calm her lips press into an even line like they are now.

“Fjerda,” Ava echoes, and wonders if it's hoping too much for Fjerda to really mean Beatrice. Her body wants to move, her limbs aching with a momentum that’s building without her permission, the same as when the light wants to rise to the surface and run riot around her.

“They don’t know,” Beatrice says softly. “There are no grisha in Fjerda that anyone knows--”

“There are grisha everywhere,” Ava counters.

“--and we’ve had a contentious relationship with Ravka and the Second Army for centuries.” Beatrice pauses, and Ava nearly reaches for her.

It would barely be anything worse than what they’re doing now, what they’ve been doing all week, pressed close enough under the blankets to share heat and measured breaths, Ava’s heartbeat always finding a way to settle and match pace against the steady metronome of Beatrice’s pulse; the touch of her fingertips against Beatrice’s arm, her cheek, her lips, would hardly be any more inappropriate than the way she’d woken like always pressed against Beatrice’s back with an arm slung over her waist.

“But they can learn,” Beatrice carries on, and a spark of light escapes from Ava’s fingertips, as if drawn to Beatrice and her dark serious eyes. Beatrice’s gaze flickers over to the light warming Ava’s fingertips, and a heat crawls down the back of Ava’s neck that could be embarrassment and could be sunlight spilling out of her; she’s not sure which she hopes it is.

“We can learn,” Beatrice says, and she’s the one who reaches out, fingertips skimming along a lock of hair over Ava's temple, brushing through it gently, and a soft gold light warms her fingertips, washes over her face.

“What are you saying,” Ava says faintly. Beatrice’s fingers wind through her hair, tucking it back behind her ear, and she hums quietly.

“The stag,” she says. “I can help you find it.”

The light in Ava's fingertips flares, and Beatrice smiles, and it feels like a promise.

#👀👀👀 #okay maybe i need to draw

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Smalls, do you have a favorite thing about cooking? Do you like baking too?

My favorite thing about cooking is that it calms my brain down, basically like a xanax. I like baking very rarely, I do not enjoy precise measurements very much, I prefer riffing. I do make coffee cake occasionally, and cookies for my wife. I keep telling myself I'll learn how to make bread but I was a quarantine plants guy, not a quarantine sourdough guy, unfortunately.

#no but for real is there anything better than when you have onions and garlic cooking and the whole apartment smells incredible

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Donation Time!

Hi everyone!

Now that all of the physical and digital copies are out into the world, we've tallied everything up and are delighted to have donated $6,554.02 to the Transgender Law Center.

We sold a total of 368 hard copies, 222 of which were bundled with a copy of volume 1, and 98 digital copies.

We're so honored by all of the support this zine continues to receive, even in a recession like we've all been going through this year. From the phenomenal artists who contributed their time and work to the folks who reblogged, retweeted, and shared all of the posts to-- most importantly-- every person who purchased a copy, we are beyond grateful for your help in raising money for this great organization. And, of course, for loving hot people with swords just as much as we do.

And a special thanks once again to @bigmammallama5, who continues to let us pester her with questions and pick her brain about running zines.

Financial transparency documents and information can be found below the cut. Again, thank you all so much for making this zine a success!

Total Revenues and Expenses

Sales brought in a total of $13,468.95; after fees from Stripe and Paypal and printing and shipping costs, the total profit available for donation was $6,554.02:

Paypal and Stripe Documents

Printing Costs Documents

Packing and Shipping Costs Documents

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The pirate captain and the shark lady 💕

#illustration

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I’m at 5 what about you?

#1 #i do not like snails at all #the texture is just not for me #i am also not the biggest fan of beets but if they're roasted i'll still eat em

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Would you ever consider doing a tutorial on how you complete an artwork from start to finish. (Would obviously give $$ to support)

I don't think I'd be good at that but sometimes i post little process gifs and I have a reference tag of other people's tutorials here. There's one on clothing that was super helpful to me.

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ok I’m curious so put in the tags what country you are from and whether or not you own/use a rice cooker

#Hungary and i use an instapot because i don't have room for a rice cooker AND am instapot #my parents cook rice in a pot #which i am too lazy to do

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ahsoka, sabine wren/shin hati, M, 13k

Ahsoka had brought her to Shatterdome once her body had healed, a long two years of rehab and recovery, and she had pushed herself through simulations and copilot candidates until she had been deemed unsuitable for a return to active duty, too locked into the grief of her lost copilot to let anyone else into the drift with her. Grounded. Useless. One look at Shin Hati, freshly arrived in Shatterdome to be matched to a new copilot after her uncle and copilot had ascended to a leadership role alongside Ahsoka, with her pale hair and pale skin and pale eyes, angular and striking and unwavering, and Sabine's carefully-constructed equilibrium ruptures into seething, scalding hatred.

@critter-of-habit made me do it

#i dont go here yet but i will and i am so excited fiddle fell face first into this ship #star wars

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TRICK OR TREAT! :D

seems like everyone i know who's getting this is posting fic snippets so uhhh okay here you go:

Ava's life ends with a fire, and with a dark sky, and with the world collapsing around her.

She crashes onto a rock, stumbling legs barely making the jump, and falls entirely onto her face.  Her whole body thrums with pain, with a loss that feels like peace, with the understanding that they succeeded, they saved the world, they saved everyone.

Beatrice lands at her side, inelegant and crumpling, filthy with volcanic ash ash and the grime of keeping them both upright after so long, from hauling Ava up the mountain when the ring had worn down the last of her strength.  She’s bleeding from a gash just over her temple, hands and knees blistered from the superheated rocks she’d landed on to drag Ava back from the edge, back from her own failure.

They saved the world, but not for them.  They saved the world, but only for everyone else.  There’s no ring left, no Sauron. No destiny anymore, no future, no journey home to a realm and a throne and a people that have been waiting generations for her to find her way to them.  Just Ava and Beatrice, here alone at the end like it had for so long been just Ava and Beatrice, a lost heir and a discarded outcast, alone together at the beginning.

Ava curls onto her side, her breaking body resisting the effort, until she can bury her head in Beatrice’s neck and drop her hand onto the ragged worn shirt covering Beatrice’s stomach, armor long lost.  There’s always been a familiar scent to Beatrice, constant as her steady heartbeat, warm and clean.  Now, though, as the world ends around them, ash settling light on them and lava creeping closer and closer, Beatrice smells like blood and sweat and exhaustion.

Distantly, the tower crumbles, a shockwave that shudders the mountain and the fading ache of Ava's pulse as she finally, finally, lets herself rest. Closer, a hand curls along the back of Ava’s neck, up into her hair, and a small choked noise escapes into the side of Beatrice’s neck.

“I’m glad you’re here with me,” Ava says, because even here, even now, with the world ending around them and no way out, she still can’t put proper words to it.  Ava’s spent her whole life running, running from her name and her blood and her birthright, from her duty and her future and her people, from Beatrice.  “Here, at the end of all things.”

#wtf fiddle WHAY THR FICK

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All the "inktobers" for this week (taking a break for the weekend) !

I. Hérault / Herald  · II. Piqueur / Kennelkeeper  · III. Échanson / Cupbearer  · IV. Naturaliste / Naturalist  · V. Comédien / Comedian  · VI. Chirurgien / Surgeon

#illustration

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the most i can put on tumblr without them flagging this but the uncropped version is up on patreon