#I have so many ideas for them but I can never draw it ;-;

[azriona]

Look. I know using AI to create something can be tempting. Seductive even. It's a shortcut! We all love shortcuts! Especially when our creative resources are feeling tapped out!

BUT DON'T GIVE IN. Please, please, don't give in. If you're feeling tapped out, using AI is not a solution. It's not a stepping stone to creating your own thing. It won't help you get back into the groove of creation because that's not how creation works. In fact, I'd say that using AI in any part of the creative process could very well be a road-block to being fully creative in your own right. You won't be exercising the muscles you need to create something on your own, so you'll end up needing AI (or feeling like you do) for the rest of your creative life.

It all goes back to this:

Make the shitty art. Try writing the story (or drawing it; insert your verb as desired), fail, try writing it again, fail again, try writing something else, get a little further, get stuck, shelve it, read a whole bunch of books, watch a bunch of movies, write a little bit more. Finish it. Start again.

That's how you create. Ask any author on here, ask any artist, how many unfinished projects we have. How many ideas we started, couldn't get through, shelved. So, so many. I never leave a fandom without at least half a dozen unfinished, unposted, half-stories. Hell, I've got at least two actually finished books that Pen's never going to publish because I'm not happy with them.

This is normal.

You cannot finish what you personally did not start. So start it. Yourself.

like i'm sorry but we as a fandom have to stay firm on our anti-AI values. we cannot suddenly start giving AI a pass when it's something we "want to see" like destiel kisses. it's not suddenly fine. we're not going to start using AI to make fanfic scenes come to life or audio AI to make characters "say" stuff we want to hear. you have GOT to be firm on your anti-AI stance. if you start making exceptions then suddenly anything will fly. fandom is for real art and creations made by real people. no AI fanfics. no AI art. no AI rendered "bonus" scenes. no AI audio. none of it has a place here.

[atsadi-shenanigans]

FSBE 4 - She Doesn't Know What She's Done

The rogue is not jealous. Well, maybe a little.

On AO3.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

Astarion has never drowned. Cannot drown, technically speaking. Yet this feels eerily similar to how he’s imagined doing just that.

His leader ducks into her tent and her little beastie chirps and trills. She bids Astarion good night, and lets the flap fall closed. He’s left to stand there as his lungs fill with something thick, his insides grown suddenly heavy.

Consider herself well and truly taken?

Oh, he’s said lines much like it many times. More than many: a well-placed “I love you” with a soft face and a voice tightened by feigned desperation? Not enough to alarm, but enough to entice? Pretty stories of devotion, how he’s never felt this way before but having laid eyes upon whatever unfortunate idiot he’s selected that night. Uses it on the foolish sweethearts when he’s in the mood to be selfish.

This should be no different. Is no different, other than the duration. His current darling is no mayfly night of passion. He’s had to work hard, be patient to finally draw her in and secure his prize.

He’s never kept a prize, however. It was never his prize. Now he’s caught one, and he has to…do something with it. Keep it. She’d been getting skittish again. They’ve gone too long without him reminding her why she ought to keep him close. And with the rest of their merry band of fools about, she won’t need to rely on him as she did in the Underdark.

(Why does that almost…hurt?)

He should be grateful he needs to do less than usual. Yet the way she looks to the others now. That protective flintiness to her gaze. He’s…jealous. And he ought to be! None of them were around to watch her back (figuratively speaking) and steal her away from a band of drow. None of them kept her provisioned, or shared their tent, or watched over her (sort of) as she slept.

Yet here they are, expecting her kindness as if they’ve earned it.

As if he’s…

But he has secured her. And tomorrow, he’ll give her a reminder. Show her what his hands or his lips or his body can do for her. He’s won, godsdamnit. This is satisfaction tightening his chest.

For now, he should reverie while he has the chance (grim though that task is). He turns. And spots the cleric staring, not even trying to disguise her eavesdropping. She lifts a single, judgmental eyebrow.

So he puts on his best simper and tucks himself into a theatrical bow. Then ducks into the privacy of his own tent. That no longer carries his leader’s warmth or her scent.

He’s not jealous of the little furred beast.

***

The doors of their decrepit sanctum screech almost as badly as Petras when Godey’s feeling particularly energetic. Astarion has to join the cleric in covering his ears until the tortured things are finally wrenched wide enough for them all to catch a glimpse of this shadow curse.

The heaviness already plaguing him plummets to a new low.

Outside was once a wood. Tall trees, green grass, probably bouncing bunnies and frolicking fawns.

What greets them now is beyond dead.

“I’ve seen corpses more lively than this place,” he says. “And I don’t mean my own brethren.”

Eleanor winces with her entire body. Even her beastie shuffles closer to her legs. She reaches down, thoughtlessly, to scratch the animal’s head. Astarion wonders where he might stash such a creature after he’s drained it.

There is no sky. No horizon. Twisted trees, rotted black, the bark split like a days-old corpse to show decayed, hollow wood. Barren ground, save for clumps of something writhing and twisting slowly in the gloom. He has an inkling that walking into that would be a terrible idea.

“Do we have more torches?” says the druid.

The large elf looks grimmer than the dead landscape. Astarion has seen sad eyes—he’s quite drawn to them, usually. A sad mark is an easy mark. And the druid looks rather like a beggar who’s had his last coin swiped by a pickpocket.

Astarion leans in close to his leader. “You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if our venerable guide simple keeled over.”

Realizes immediately it was the wrong thing to say. Because Eleanor is soft when she’s not a terror, and now he’s drawn her attention to a wounded baby bird, of sorts.

Damnit.

“Halsin?” she says.

The big elf pulls back into himself. Offers what she probably sees as an encouraging, if slight, smile. Says, “It’s alright.”

Only Astarion is drawn to those, too. Can spot the crack along that smile, and the festering beneath it. Sorrow. Shame, perhaps. The druid wouldn’t stand out in a lower city dockside tavern, four cups in and mooning for some lost love.

He uses his cantrip to light a spare torch when his leader glances his way. Let her see his magic (he’s learning magic) is as potent as ever. He even hands her that torch. Doesn’t imagine (he hopes) the way her face softens as she takes it.

Good. Focus on him.

They head out, into the gloom. The shadows immediately swallow them. Astarion is used to shadows. Has something of a love/hate affair with them, really. They’re quite useful for slinking about when he’s drawn unwanted attention. When that bastard let him out of the kennels as prey rather than lure. But being confined only to the shadows, even when he doesn’t want to be…

Their tiefling flares hot. The orange glow in her chest burns, mechanical heart brightening as the vents along her arm spit sparks.

“Anybody else feel like we’re being watched?” she says.

Dearest Eleanor is close enough he could reach out and brush her ear. Which he does not do. Her gaze flicks about, a nervous bird finding no safe perch.

“Usually, I’m the one stalking the shadows,” he says. Her gaze lands on him for a moment. That’s it. Look to him. Draw her in. “I can’t say I appreciate being on the other end.”

“Stay within the light, whatever occurs,” the big druid says. As if his bulk doesn’t take up nearly an entire circle of said light.

Something moves in Astarion’s periphery. Too fluid to be a living thing, too solid to be a spirit.

“What the fuck,” his leader says.

The mist around them swirls into tendrils, into claws reaching for them. They stop at the edge of the torchlight and curl back into mist. Things move within—small sounds, scurrying sounds. Odd, dry clicking that makes Astarion think of hated bones scraping along joints as a skeletal face leers down.

He turns to make some remark, only to find his leader curling in on herself, teeth beginning to chatter. He feels nothing but the usual touch of undeath. On a lark, he sticks his hand out, brushes his gloved fingertips through the mist, and it feels like the grave. Waking in the dark, lungs creaking, kicking and thrashing and something was wrong, wrong, wrong why was he in a box oh gods, gods—

He hisses. Pulls back.

“Careful,” the druid says, as if her were an errant child. “The curse lies thicker than I’ve ever seen it. I wouldn’t expect it to pass over even you, Astarion.”

“Because I’m so charming?” he says.

“Because you’re a corpse that doesn’t know better,” the cleric says.

He should bite her.

But now she’s frowning and reaching out. There’s something in the road—if he’s being supremely charitable with that word—ahead. She makes a small sound, takes a step towards it. A step outside the light.

“Shadowheart,” the wizard says, the first strain of tension pulling at his voice.

But the cleric stands there, looking at her hands, down over her body. Turns back and there’s a look to her eyes he’s seen before, on the wretches and idiots drawn to that bastard’s mansion of their own accord. The desperate and deranged come to prove their service in return for the gift of immortality.

Astarion manages to not to bare his teeth at the naked fanaticism shining through their cleric. Barely.

Beside him, his leader’s face has turned to stone.

“It doesn’t affect me,” the cleric says. Brushes one of the reaching hands of mist. Her touch passes through it like it’s nothing but colored festival smoke. “It must be my lady’s protection. She must love me still.”

Familiar again. He’s heard that in other voices.

In his own.

Disgusting.

“Ugh, the rest of us our trying to keep our breakfasts, if you don’t mind,” he says.

To his surprise, it’s the gith who swipes back. “You did not feed this morning. Or last night.”

He can’t help it. Instinct and armor all at once, and the flirting slides down, over his face. “Oh, are you offering, my dear?”

“Touch my neck and you will not even see me strike your head from your shoulders.”

He turns to his leader. “Mmm, I do love spicy food.”

But she’s looking at the cleric—now examining the pile of rags in the road. A long-withered skeleton in faded, rotting armor. Apparently it’s a “dark justiciar” according to their cleric, who sighs wistfully.

There’s something very peculiar to the way his leader watches this. Not quite hostile. But more than focused. It’s close to the face she wears when she’s plotting a murder, except…no, that’s not correct, either.

The cleric is taking up entirely too much of Eleanor’s attention. That won’t do. Not at all. He needs to be her primary focus, not their delusional Sharran.

The group eventually moves on. Astarion lets himself drift back. Waits until he’s nearly out of the light. The skull of the dead fanatic stares up at him. The face is halfway crumbled, though the teeth are all there, shiny and yellowed.

He brings his boot down right through where the nose would have been. Crushes the thing to powder.

When he looks up, Eleanor stares.

“Ah, clumsy me,” he says. “Shall we?”

He needs to get to her tonight. Refocus her. Keep that tether tight and strong.

Note: No update next Wednesday, possibly not on next Saturday either. I'll be back by 1/8/25 though.

[enden-k]

NEW CONTENT TO ANALYZE 🛐

For now have a very eepy fixation on the scene where Saran is wrapped around Vika. He's not even close to being physically similar to Vika. Does that stop him at all from being his own weighted blanket/being able to wrap himself around him? Not at all. The reason he has tentacles is to better wrap around Vika

(Something about how Saran seemed to be absentmindedly petting the scars, I wonder if it was due to the texture? Or just something he likes doing. Idk something about it is very intimate, for some reason, usually you'd see a character kissing the area so i guess it's because it's something i haven't seen before that IS a display of intimacy. Rolling it over in my brain. Like a rotisserie chicken. Good concept)

Also 'VIKA CONTROL YOUR TOOL' lmao. It's giving 'GET YOUR FUCKING DOG BITCH' "It don't bite" 'YES IT DO-'. Protective Saran. Also a tasty concept. Good brain food too. Good stuff

(Also, the person who was saying that they liked Saran despite having some issues with eyes is so real. I have a horrible eye phobia. Eyes in general (specially eye contact) really creeps me out and every now and then there will be an illustration where i go 'ah yes this is the eye character. How the fuck did I forget that when IT'S HIS WHOLE THING' because genuinely you HAVE to be putting something in him! He doesn't creep me out! Genuinely i dont have any idea how Saran isn't just one walking trigger for me or why i enjoy him as much even when he does occasionally spook me

It's so weird! Fascinating! Genuinely feel like consuming Saran content (well. Your content in general but specially Saran related) has desensitized me somewhat to eyes. I even find myself particularly enjoying the way eyes have been drawn that day! Good characters good lore and now I can go a step above in my character analysis (in other fandoms) by watching their eyes without getting freaked out about it! Never have been so happy to have stumbled across someone's work)

-eepy 🦜. Still rotating the way they cuddle in my head. Saran is so attentive. So lovely....

imo, wrists are super intimate to touch (probably bc im very sensitive there and dont like them being touched unless its someone im comfortable w and trust); not to mention scars (esp if its SH)

saran stroking and tracing them gently is like him acknowledging them but not judging or pitying etc vika; not paying extreme attention/hyperfocus to them but also not ignoring them to the point of it becoming obvious. they are just a part of the person he loves. they are just there

also, saran just really likes to touch (so does vika) but very soft and gentle; hes the kind of person who will always gently run his knuckles down your face, hold your wrist and trace your veins or scars, stroke the back of your hand or palms, push stray locks of your hair behind your ear. its little but very intimate touches that say more than words could in this moment, more powerful than a bold touch imo

LMAO ITS FUNNY BC while im not scared of eyes at all or anything, im also just very uncomfortable and bad with being looked at/eye contact (i can manage when its a few seconds tho but i really do hate being perceived) but drawing saran so much and his many-eyes when theyre all staring straight at the viewer never fazed me lololol (prolly bc i stare at my own drawings longer than any of you, since i work on them n all)

i love how the eye-guy somehow managed to break through yalls fear of eyes tho!! saran was on his way to become a doctor before he died, does it count if i say bby still managed to "help" at least one a little bit even tho hes dead now? 🥹

[cozylittleartblog]

Columbo and the Knight (1984)

put me in the universe where Columbo ran through the 1980s and had a crossover episode with Knight Rider. I think they deserved it, and I am not just saying that because they're my two favorite Old Shows. @telebeast wrote a little fanfic blurb about it and I HAD to visualize it into a comic (which is also the longest comic I have finished thus far at five pages...), so writing credit goes to them.

Autism W!

[off-mozzarella]

Please read by opening each image, otherwise it makes no sense lol

This is the most stupid thing I've done all year but I was already too far into it when I started regretting it XD

I don't usually do this kind of thing but the concept had been rotating in my mind for a few weeks and I needed to get it out

I have a few ideas but this was already long enough and it felt like a good spot to cut it off, buut I want to see if people like it so 👉👈 hope you enjoyed it

Sorry if it feels a bit weird, I may be able to draw but not write lol, this is my first actual attempt at making a comic

[lilybug-02]

Wow. That could not have turned out worse.

Part 23 || First || Previous || Next

--Full Series--

This comic will be on Holiday Hiatus this December and January! While on a cliffhanger? What a scam! >:/

[dizzybizz]

some doodles

[haedia]

Right there with you, especially the end bit. I like to think a similar kind of thing. Headcanon journey under the cut.

Like, it pleases me to consider Rook telling Spite that it's alright if he comes to them when Lucanis needs sleep, especially if he's bored. My Rook's sleep schedule is kind of fucked anyway so it's not like Spite is gonna make it worse.

It takes awhile for Lucanis to really get comfortable with Spite doing things while he's out but knowing that the people around him are keeping an eye on Spite helps. And, Spite gets more comfortable with them in return.

I can see him going to them with questions about the world outside of the Fade and having fun exploring those differences... once he gets over frustrations about how those differences affect Lucanis' body (like, say, gravity or how eating candles would hurt him, etc)

And I loooove the idea of the different members of the team taking Spite out on "walks" to different places when he gets particularly restless. Emmrich has some glasses made for him that hide his glowing eyes when they're out and about, so they don't have to worry (as much) about Spitecanis being noticed as an abomination.

Spite gets to experience food in it's full glory, though he finds it overwhelming at first. It's only later, when they learn to "share" Lucanis' body simultaneously that he begins to develop his own appreciation for flavors, separate (or, as separate as possible for them) from Lucanis. The fact that he can feel how Lucanis feels when experiencing taste allows him access to a framework for interpreting the sensations for himself.

It'd be like going from a fuzzy shot of flowers on a sunny day, a bright riot of color blobs, to an in-focus image of the same — suddenly crisp but you can take a moment to savor and choose how you move your focus around the scene.

But after he starts to figure it out? He wants to learn to make things like that, too. And thus begins his cooking arc. It's a disaster to start, of course, but it amuses Rook and that alone soothes Spite's frustration at his early floundering. Eventually, he starts to develop his skills though his annoyance about what ingredients he can and can't use never really goes away.

"Spite, you can't put that rock in the soup"

"It reminds me. Of our walk."

"The rock or the soup?"

"Yes. Both. They go together"

"They can go together on the table, then. But you can't put that rock in the soup"

Spite opens his mouth to say more and Rook interjects

"Even if you washed it. You can't"

Spite grumbles and puts the rock back on the counter.

"Spite." Rook says and draws his attention back to them "It *is* a pretty rock, though. I remember where you found it."

"It IS pretty. Like glass. Like a rainy day" Spite beams at them before returning to stirring the soup.

Anyway. I just have so many thoughts and feelings about Lucanis and Spite — at all points in their journey. Though, the warm fuzzies I get for their post-Inner Demons relationship are nearly unending.

Knowing what was actually going on between Spite and Lucanis, I felt really bad for Spite during my second play through. He is trying so hard to talk to Rook and explain, but he is new to this world and doesnt know how to explain it. He actually does attempt to explain what is wrong several times and if Rook had really listened to what the demon was saying, might have realized something was wrong. But, by virtue of being an abomination/demon, the group was poisoned against Spite, so everything Spite does is viewed with suspicion and no one gets it.

Like I see why Emmrich is so nonchalant around Spite from the beginning because he can actually hear what Spite was saying and while he doesn’t fully understand what Spite was getting at, he can see Spite isn’t malignant or malicious. Spite really is just a little shade trying his best in a world that he doesn’t get and who doesn’t get him. I really like the idea that once Inner Demons is over, Rook attempts to actually get to know Spite, because Spite deserves the chance.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Detectives at the Disco (Elysium)

[karokatten]

I'm doing some art prompts with friends this month for funsies, and today prompt was an opportunity i could not pass up. Demigender Traveller? For my he/they traveller? Thats just too perfect. And the flag is mostly greyscale too, it just fit so well.

Enjoy my best attempt at Siffrin from In Stars And Time, I am so ill about this game you have no idea.

[amethystina]

Hey !! I hope you're doing good :)

Do you think we will get a little cute christmas fic Yohan/ Gaon ? I love this kind of fics, it's fluffy and perfect for the season.

Take care <3

Hi! I am not doing well, unfortunately, but it is what it is at this point 😅

My original answer for this ask was going to be that no, probably not because a) I don't have time, b) I'd have to look into how people actually celebrate Christmas in South Korea because I know it's different from how we do it where I live in the west, and d) I have no idea what to write.

But then I made the mistake of not replying fast enough which gave my brain time to come up with an idea when I wasn't looking. I swear, my mind is like a disobedient dog. If I don't keep an eye on it the majority of the time, it'll start chewing on anything it finds interesting and then barf up the result onto my carpet.

Still, despite C no longer being applicable, A and B still are. Which means that I probably won't be able to write it regardless. Not because I don't want to or don't like the idea (I do, because it would be Yo Han's POV and deal with his thoughts on Christmas after growing up with a Christian but abusive father) but because I just don't have the time.

So while I wish I could say yes, I can't. There is simply too much happening in my life right now for me to add another thing to my to-do list. If I'm able to write or draw right now, I'm focusing on finishing ongoing projects, not starting new ones.

I'm flattered that you asked, though! I know it's a compliment and I do appreciate the interest you're showing in my writing.

You take care too! 💜

[creativity-deficient]

Vent below-

[culecerglytri]

why am i so damn insecure and unsure of myself,,,,, swapnverse,,,,, this stupid mtt fic,,,,, everything with killer,,,, my art my writing even my thoughts,,,,, i dont know its a pain to be a creator i guess maybe my stuff is okay. no its not my stuff isnt ok people only say its okay because of the type of content it is people only say that its okay because they like the trio my art isnt good at all and neither is my writing and my ideas are unoriginal and even when they are theyre not anything special and especially not when nobody sees them any fucking way in the end because no matter how much i try which isnt a fucking lot because of course it is no matter how much i try in the end nobody will see my fucking shit nobody likes my writing nobody likes my art I DONT EVEN LIKE MY OWN ART OR WRITING i dont like any of it i hate it i hate it i hate it its not good enough itll never be good enough whats the point in making if i cant achieve the level i want its been years its been years and nothing's changed there's no pointi should just give up

[sanchoyoscribbles]

the graphic novel release reminded me I do have a dp oc that ive been severely neglecting. im so sry ms chérie I still love u 😔🫶

[diredeliverance]

I have One Thing Only and that is angels. A demigod can be like an angel, maybe. The mood of this wound up almost the polar opposite of my original idea.

I like the line art better than either color version, so it's under the crop.

The sketch went through about a dozen changes to both expressions and face positions, and in the end I'm still not really satisfied even if I like how Asperia came out.

[chiropteracupola]

haven't drawn The Man in a while and a while so I thought it was about time to have another look at his face