Sans titre

[mafuyuh]

witch hat atelier | manga vs. anime

[rebelrevenant]

Canker in the Heart

May we never lose sight of one thing: the "canker in the heart" of Anne Rice’s collected works is a mother’s grief. From that grief flowed a wellspring of macabre beauty, as red and as thorny as any rose. Honor her.

2026, Procreate & Photoshop

[bucketofdeltav]

So my beta reader for the Big Fics is an astrophysicist, right. Who is currently also writing a hard sci-fi novel about the exploration of Phobos (more power to them, I cannot with the physics required for that, best I can do is soft sci-fi/fantasy and that reminds me I should finish that story).

Anyway I was bitching about how hard it is to come up with feasible planets in Star Wars because sometimes you need a new planet from scratch and sometimes you need to know more about a planet than the 'has jungles, is probably a moon technically' than Wookieepedia will give you, and they're like 'oh yeah I can do something about that'.

So they've written (in Matlab but they swear it will run as a .exe as well and I may be conscripted to embed it as a web tool at some point) a star system generator.

You input what you know about the planet (ecosystem, population, sun colour, does it have liquid water, does it have a moon or moons, is it a moon or moons, temperature averages, atmosphere, you get me) and it will give you the... everything else about the star system, in obedience to real-universe physics. And if you input nothing you get a randomly generated star system.

And I’m like oh I know people who will be into this with a vengeance, and they're not on Tumblr, so this is me seeing who exactly would be keen on, and I cannot stress this enough, a real-physics comprehensive star system generator.

It's still in the debugging phase (last error fixed: every planet wants to have a population of exactly 5000 regardless of other factors, turned out to be a missing equals sign somewhere), but I'm psyched for this and trying to gauge interest for how high a priority 'make this an accessible web tool' needs to be.

[melyzard]

[elodieunderglass]

@bucketofdeltav says the URL is here: http://tumblr.com/star-system-generator

okay it has its own blog now (@star-system-generator) on Tumblr

Follow @star-system-generator and get more of the good stuff by joining Tumblr today. Dive in!

[pyrrhiccomedy]

it's so important for a character to passionately, desperately want something that won't even help

[fucxingcuties]

This one is a classic!

[boykavalier]

Assad Zaman as Armand THE VAMPIRE LESTAT "The Devil's Road"

[dark-sabrina]

Why did you all yell at him when he's a poor little Bambi who did nothing wrong!! And even if he had done a little bit, it's just that events didn't happen in the way he wanted to... But stop!!! he will cry!!!😫😫 Well, if I can console him.😏 😍😁

[fairyw1ngs]

[witchofanguish]

[mysteryteacup]

On a more serious note: If you have a partner or a parent or a boss (urgh) or religious leader who threatens to hurt or kill themselves if you don't do what they want, the correct answer is to call their bluff and leave the relationship as soon as possible. 99% of the time they are going to backtrack the moment they realise you will not capitulate, because they don't actually want to hurt themselves - they want to hurt and control you - and if they don't back down, guess what? That's not your fault. Awful person suffers the consequences of their own awfulness is never your fault, no matter how desperately they want you to believe otherwise.

[dogpuppy]

[random-brushstrokes]

Aleksandra Waliszewska - From the series "Mermaids" (2019)

[digitalkiddo]

If you're writing anything involving cons, scams, heists, or morally questionable characters who are very good at lying, here are some free resources I've been using for research. Saving you the "why is this in my search history" anxiety.

1. The FBI's Famous Cases & Criminals archive (fbi.gov/history/famous-cases) has detailed breakdowns of real fraud cases, Ponzi schemes, and confidence operations. The language they use is clinical and precise, which is perfect for getting the procedural details right.

2. The FTC Consumer Sentinel Network publishes annual reports on the most common fraud tactics in the US. Great for understanding how modern scams actually work and what makes people fall for them.

3. The Smithsonian's American Art Museum has a free digital collection of forgery case studies. If your character forges documents or art, this is gold.

4. Court Listener (courtlistener.com) is a free legal database where you can read actual court transcripts from fraud trials. Want to know how a real con artist talks under oath? This is where you find out.

5. The Internet Archive's collection of old newspaper crime sections. Search for "confidence man" or "swindle" in papers from the 1920s through 1960s and you'll find incredible real stories that would feel too dramatic for fiction.

Bonus: The Psychology of Fraud section on the Association for Psychological Science website has accessible articles about why people trust, how deception works cognitively, and what makes someone a convincing liar. Essential reading if you want your con artist characters to feel psychologically real.

Reblog to save for later. Your WIP will thank you.

[sewerfight-deactivated20250114]

Imagine a bee rn in a hive muttering "the beekeeper is not real because he is not intervening or helping me at all with this disastrous relationship I have with another bee". now imagine that's you talking about the good lord. now imagine a dog with a propeller hat on

[xenobotanist]

[61below]

Filing this in my memory right next to this thread:

[flowerbleedme]

is anyone imagining a dog with a propeller hat on

[alexaloraetheris]

Doesn't imagining the face of god burn your eyes out?

[vintageeveryday]

In 1995, 44-year-old McArthur Wheeler became the unintentional face of a major psychological breakthrough after attempting one of history’s most bizarre bank robberies.

On January 6, 1995, Wheeler and an accomplice robbed two banks in Pittsburgh. What made the crime legendary wasn’t the loot, but Wheeler’s “disguise.” He walked into the banks without a mask, looking directly into the security cameras and even smiling. When police arrested him later that night after his face appeared on the local news, he was reportedly stunned, muttering: “But I wore the juice.”

Wheeler’s “brilliant” plan was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of chemistry. He knew that lemon juice can be used as invisible ink (which becomes visible when heated). He concluded that if he smeared lemon juice all over his face, he would become invisible to security cameras. To “test” his theory, he reportedly took a selfie with a Polaroid camera. Because he was likely sweating and the juice stung his eyes, he aimed the camera poorly and captured a shot of the ceiling. In his mind, the blank photo was proof: the juice worked.

While the police had a good laugh, the story the attention of Cornell University psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger. They were fascinated by how someone could be so incompetent yet so confident. This led to their 1999 study and the naming of the Dunning–Kruger Effect, which describes a cognitive bias where people with limited knowledge of a task vastly overestimate their own ability.

[posttexasstressdisorder]

It was just called "stupid" before that.

[homoquartz]

i’ve warmed up significantly towards the concept of small talk ever since i learned that its sole purpose is to make friendly noises.

as long as you smile and nod, people are satisfied. it’s just to show that you are nice and there with good intentions. we’re small in a big world and have to rely on other people to be decent to us. so we do our little human dance to each other to say, “i’m not here to hurt you. here’s something we have in common, like the weather or sports or itchy sweaters, so we both know we’re on the same team. we both agree on a basic fact, like that it is rainy or that being itchy is uncomfortable, and this proves we can get along. i’m being light-hearted and non-threatening right now.”

small talk isn’t to get to know a person. it’s just a greeting to affirm you’re buddies in the universe.

i am motivated by wanting the other person to know i am friendly, so i have gotten pretty decent at small talk when i used to hate it.

[piratedgender]

[themisally]

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[hornestoothgap]

T. Kingfisher - What Stalks the Deep

[allhailthedramallama]

Same book, this is the character's explanation for why they leave to go to America on a vague telegram from a friend that sounds like they're definitely going to die.