Starlight and Fire

30+; they/them; Digital Artist; Programmer; Sculptor; Human disaster area. Art over at @4thstate

[solerer]

Listen I don’t even care if the animorphs movie or show in production are any good, I just need some footage so that I can make kpop-style edits of Visser 3

[4thstate-connected]

Hello Tumblr, I would like all my fellow Internet denizens to know that I got asked on a staff-feedback survey if I was...

a person of dIversity

[infanteriesauvage]

[romanceyourdemons]

guy working on an artwork they knew would push them technically: what the hell why do i keep doing this wrong. am i haunted by malevolent spirits and such

[femmeberlin]

A terrible fact of fandom is that sometimes people who absolutely suck and have stupid takes are going to enjoy the exact same things you do and the only thing you can do about it is sit there with your mutuals who don’t suck like:

[myboobsaresentientbeeings]

"the block button, my liege?" will enter my vocabulary now

[sarakipin]

Anything to walk on land 🔪 2021

[rimonoroni2]

my general opinion on what people should be "allowed" to portray and what topics they should be "allowed" to explore in fiction is that you can make whatever art with whatever themes you want but i'm also allowed to think the way you handled it was tasteless and should've been done differently. my negative opinion on your handling of sensitive topics is the price of admission for publicly showcasing your work. this is not a pro-censorship stance because i am not The Government

[rimonoroni2]

this is getting really popular so i’d like to add the important caveat that your criticism of a work is no more unassailable than the work itself. just as one is entitled to be critical of something someone else is entitled to disagree with that criticism. i add this because some of you pretend to give a fuck about thoughtful analysis and then when someone points out flaws in your argument you declare that all criticisms are valid. this is untrue. the status of a hater is no more sacred than that of a liker. get off your high horse and engage in the thoughtful discussion you pretend to believe in or perish by my blade

[rowanclair]

In an ancient forest, shallow pools reflect not the trees above, but a luminous city of elsewhere.

[thestuffedalligator]

Genies can only grant wishes that are things that an ordinary person could do, just better and faster. The jinn are the creations of a divine being, and so they are part of the divine plan and cannot defy the natural order of things; a wish granted by a jinni can’t turn the day into night or the sea into yogurt, but if you wish for a temple to be built, a jinni will build it by hand, the way men do, and have it done in a day.

If you need a wish granted that defies the natural order you gotta catch a leprechaun, because no god was involved in their creation whatsoever. They just kinda showed up one day in the nineteenth century. The Aos Sí have no idea what their deal is

[kreetn]

You’re not hiding this in the tags buddy

[flagellant]

i don't hide things in tags i simply allow the proletariat to determine whether it is praxis to make my statements heard.

[maggiedeshiboux]

the other reason the leprechaun shoots the king of england in the head is that, unnatural abomination against God and Fey alike or not, it's still Irish

[mudwerks]

AI industry horrified to face largest copyright class action ever certified

Copyright class actions could financially ruin AI industry, trade groups say.

AI industry groups are urging an appeals court to block what they say is the largest copyright class action ever certified. They’ve warned that a single lawsuit raised by three authors over Anthropic’s AI training now threatens to “financially ruin” the entire AI industry if up to 7 million claimants end up joining the litigation and forcing a settlement.

well…darn

[flippyspoon]

like to charge reblog to cast financial ruin of the AI industry 🔮

[novella-november]

originally posted August 8th, 2025.

Authors have until March 30th, 2026 (That is just 9 days as of this reblog, which I am posting on March 21st, 2026) to file their claim against Anthropic to be reimbursed up to $3,000 per work found in the list.

What Authors Need to Know About the $1.5 Billion Anthropic Settlement

Updated February 18, 2026 IMPORTANT: The Claims Deadline Is March 30 Background  Bartz v. Anthropic is one of the major copyright lawsuits b

Please click the above link for all of the exact details of how to file a claim and to check for your works, and share this post as far and wide as you can before March 30th, 2026!

[shi1498912]

!!!SIGNAL BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOST!!!

[dduane]

Seriously, friends! If you’re a member of the class in the class action, you now have sort of 72 hours left to file your claim. If you’re owed money and do not file your claim before March 30, YOU WILL GET NO MONEY.

Don’t leave this on the table, cousins! You owe it to the creative community to take EVERY DAMN DOLLAR YOU CAN out of these thieves’ hides.

Here’s the Writers Beware post on this as of last September.

Here’s the Authors Guild page about it. It’s not insanely complicated, and if you’re in the class, they’ve made it easy for you to ID the works involved. (More than 30 for me, for example. Argh.)

Here’s the place where you can do your claim online.

DO NOT FUTZ AROUND IF YOU’RE OWED MONEY. Just go do it!

[writingwithfolklore]

Writing Resources to use instead of AI

For coming up with character names:

Behind the name (my absolute fav)

Allows you to choose the origin of where you want the name to be from, whether you want a more feminine vs masculine vs androgenous name (as voted by users), random surname generator, and clicking on the name gives you important info like if there are any famous people with the same name, where it’s from, how common it is, and how people tend to see it, etc.

You can also search their name database by letter or meaning or origin, so if you know you want a character who has a name/surname that starts with an A from Ireland, there’s a whole list for you to choose from.

Census sites

Especially useful if you’re looking for a name from a specific place and/or time period. Just search “(country) census (year)” and you’ll find a database of real people who lived in that place at that time. No one can ever call your names unrealistic again.

For coming up with place names:

Fantasy name generator

This site can basically come up with any name for any person, place, or thing you might ever need. There are also specific generators for different fandoms if you’re looking to make an OC in an established world.

For finding that one word on the tip of your tongue:

One Look Thesaurus

This is my go-to. Not only can you find synonyms like a regular thesaurus, but you can also describe words like “unhappy smile” or “quiet laugh” to find the more specific word you’re looking for.

For coming up with ideas:

Word cloud

When I need to inspire a new idea, I write down all the things I’m interested in (hauntings, academia, lesbians, etc.) and put them into a word cloud to shuffle them next to each other. Sometimes seeing a concept in a new context can spark new ideas!

WWF Discord

This is my discord channel (shameless plug) for when you need to brainstorm off other people but don’t have anyone irl to talk to. We’re also happy to read and give feedback on writing, answer writing questions, or just chat!

For visualizing places and characters:

Pinterest

Pinterest can at times be a bit too sterile for my tastes, but if you use the right words, you can find more realistic photos of places. For example, adding “aesthetic” after basically any word will bring up a more broad collection of photos to help you flesh out places.

This is also a great way to find photos of people and fashion to help visualize characters. I’m bad at describing clothes, so I usually collect photos of outfits to help me know what my characters are wearing. Searching up “character inspiration” will collect more interesting photos and drawings of people who might not exactly be of our world.

(However, to make Pinterest not show you AI results, you have to go into your settings and check the “reduce AI” box. Luckily, it does mostly work.)

Death to Stock

Like pinterest but completely AI free (hooray!) Only drawback is that you have to pay a monthly subscription (about $20 CAD).

Cosmos

Very similar to pinterest but slightly more "artsy". I'm not super familiar with this one but I believe all the photos are human and you can save them and create collections with a free account.

Dupe Photos

Royalty-free stock image site with very Pinterest-core photos!

Minecraft

If you haven’t built your entire fictional city in Minecraft instead of writing, why not? It’s fun.

The Sims

This one is dual purpose because you can not only create your characters in Create a Sim, but you can design their houses. If you really want to go for it, you can bulldoze all the lots in your town and build your world from scratch.

For checking grammar:

Grammar Girl

Easy to follow definitions and examples, and if you learn better by listening, every article comes with a podcast to follow along with instead.

Grammar Monster

This one is my favourite for checking grammar rules because there’s tons of examples in graphics that helps for any situation.

Reedsy

Among other things, reedsy can connect you to professional editors within your budget.

For writing advice:

One Stop for Writers

This one was recommended from my discord channel and has all sorts of tutorials and resources for the writing craft.

My Blog Directory

Another shameless plug, but if you need writing advice on something specific, you can search through my directory to see if it’s there. If it isn’t, you can always send me an ask about it!

For an alternative to Google Docs:

Ellipsus

Think google docs but without AI. Yay!

(will update this list with any more suggestions or resources I discover 😊)

[just-a-readthrough]

A great resource

[saturninette]

For all writers, artists, musicians, and everyone in the creative fields

[whimsical-catacombs]

goddamn the Et Al family are some smart motherfuckers

[jester-nonconforming]

People still tend to lump JK Rowling in with the category of ~problematic artists~ and I need everyone to understand that is not the problem with her. She is not comparable to anyone who wrote a piece of fiction you hate, or someone who made rude comments in 2015 and has since learned better.

She is far more like Elon Musk. She is a radicalized person with an extreme amount of social and financial power, and for YEARS she has been using that power to try to influence her government into hurting vulnerable people, on purpose. And she has succeeded. THAT is the problem with her, and THAT is why spending money on her books is so dangerous, not because her books aged badly.

Critiquing her work is fine, of course (I personally was never a fan so I really don’t care) but you NEED to understand that fiction is not the main issue here. And I truly think acting like she’s the same as the rest of any giant list of ~problematic creators of the week~ waters down how dangerous she is.

[decadent-trans-girl]

[casceth]

i have to reblog this again because i go insane when people act like the problem with her is "its cringe for adults to like kids media" or like "the books sucked anyways" like those are completely irrelevant and try to shift the blame and focus from the active harm. even the fact the books also have bioessentialism and antisemitism is a whole different conversation

[mbari-blog]

Three hundred and sixty glorious degrees of a barreleye fish. 🤩

MBARI’s remotely operated vehicles have logged more than 5,600 successful dives and recorded more than 27,600 hours of video—yet we’ve only encountered this fish nine times!⁠ The barreleye fish, Macropinna microstoma, reaches a maximum size of 15 centimeters (six inches) and lives in the ocean’s twilight zone, at depths of 600 to 800 meters (2,000 to 2,600 feet).

Their eyes look upwards to spot their favorite prey—usually small crustaceans trapped in the tentacles of siphonophores—from the shadows they cast in the faint shimmer of sunlight from above.

But how does this fish eat with eyes that point upward and a mouth that points forward? MBARI researchers learned that barreleye can rotate their eyes beneath that dome of transparent tissue.

The deep sea is challenging to study, and we only get brief glimpses into the behaviors of deep-sea animals. MBARI’s archive of underwater video has helped illuminate life in the largest living space on Earth. Our researchers document remarkable new species and observe how deep-sea animals feed, escape predators, and reproduce. Each observation logged by our remotely operated vehicles provides another piece to the puzzle and helps improve our understanding of life in the ocean’s mysterious depths.

[bisexualmoses]

Like if you’d like a reprieve from the agonies. Reblog if the tortures are unending

[skapediem]

if it's any consolation, you'll be hailed as a hero

[tumblr]

Reblogs in a chain now get their own notes

The reblog chain is one of the things that makes Tumblr unlike anywhere else. All the notes on reblogs are attributed to the original post, no matter which branch people actually liked or reblogged. We want to keep encouraging conversations, and give contributors the recognition they deserve. 

Soon, you'll be able to like, reblog, or reply to any part of a reblog chain, and that note will go to that reblog's author. Each reblog will have its own counts, instead of one aggregated number from every version of the post. And yes, you’ll be able to like multiple posts in one chain.

If a reblog doesn't add anything, the love flows up to the last person in the chain who did. Your post doesn't lose notes just because people spread it quietly.

Past notes will stay on the original post — we're only changing what happens from here on out. Retroactively re-attributing all of them would be... a lot.

This is just the beginning. More changes are coming as we keep building this out – stay tuned!

[changes]

It’s very clear that you all have strong feelings about Tumblr and about this change. We hear you. The passion people have for how Tumblr works is one of the things that makes this place special.

As this rolls out over the next few days and you explore it, we’ll keep reading your replies and reblogs, so please keep sharing your questions, concerns, and ideas.

Your creativity has always been the heart of Tumblr, whether you’re the original poster or adding something brilliant in the reblogs, and nothing about this change is meant to limit that.

If you’d like to talk directly beyond the comments, leave a reply and we’ll follow up with as many of you as we can. We want to work with you to make Tumblr better.

[icannotgetoverbirds]

hey folks do we like this. reblog without commentary for reach

do we want this?

yes

no

Voting ended onMar 23