Mystic Books

Hello, you can call me Wolfe. I like writing stories, short or long, and nature photography. I'm trying to get out more to take more photos, and trying to find the motivation to write. I write mostly fantasy fiction stories but I also branch out when inspiration strikes.I hope you enjoy what I do here and thank you for tagging along.~

[kotori-mochi]

Can’t afford art school?

After seeing post like this 👇

And this gem 👇

As well as countless of others from the AI generator community. Just talking about how “inaccessible art” is, I decided why not show how wrong these guys are while also helping anyone who actually wants to learn.

Here is the first one ART TEACHERS! There are plenty online and in places like youtube.

📺Here is my list:

Proko (Free)

Marc Brunet (Free but he does have other classes for a cheap price. Use to work for Blizzard)

Aaron Rutten (free)

BoroCG (free)

Jesse J. Jones (free, talks about animating)

Jesus Conde (free)

Mohammed Agbadi (free, he gives some advice in some videos and talks about art)

Ross Draws (free, he does have other classes for a good price)

SamDoesArts (free, gives good advice and critiques)

Drawfee Show (free, they do give some good advice and great inspiration)

The Art of Aaron Blaise ( useful tips for digital art and animation. Was an animator for Disney)

Bobby Chiu ( useful tips and interviews with artist who are in the industry or making a living as artist)

Second part BOOKS, I have collected some books that have helped me and might help others.

📚Here is my list:

The “how to draw manga” series produced by Graphic-sha. These are for manga artist but they give great advice and information.

“Creating characters with personality” by Tom Bancroft. A great book that can help not just people who draw cartoons but also realistic ones. As it helps you with facial ques and how to make a character interesting.

“Albinus on anatomy” by Robert Beverly Hale and Terence Coyle. Great book to help someone learn basic anatomy.

“Artistic Anatomy” by Dr. Paul Richer and Robert Beverly Hale. A good book if you want to go further in-depth with anatomy.

“Directing the story” by Francis Glebas. A good book if you want to Story board or make comics.

“Animal Anatomy for Artists” by Eliot Goldfinger. A good book for if you want to draw animals or creatures.

“Constructive Anatomy: with almost 500 illustrations” by George B. Bridgman. A great book to help you block out shadows in your figures and see them in a more 3 diamantine way.

“Dynamic Anatomy: Revised and expand” by Burne Hogarth. A book that shows how to block out shapes and easily understand what you are looking out. When it comes to human subjects.

“An Atlas of animal anatomy for artist” by W. Ellenberger and H. Dittrich and H. Baum. This is another good one for people who want to draw animals or creatures.

Etherington Brothers, they make books and have a free blog with art tips.

As for Supplies, I recommend starting out cheap, buying Pencils and art paper at dollar tree or 5 below. For digital art, I recommend not starting with a screen art drawing tablet as they are more expensive.

For the Best art Tablet I recommend either Xp-pen, Bamboo or Huion. Some can range from about 40$ to the thousands.

💻As for art programs here is a list of Free to pay.

Clip Studio paint ( you can choose to pay once or sub and get updates)

Procreate ( pay once for $9.99)

Blender (for 3D modules/sculpting, ect Free)

PaintTool SAI (pay but has a 31 day free trail)

Krita (Free)

mypaint (free)

FireAlpaca (free)

Libresprite (free, for pixel art)

Those are the ones I can recall.

So do with this information as you will but as you can tell there are ways to learn how to become an artist, without breaking the bank. The only thing that might be stopping YOU from using any of these things, is YOU.

I have made time to learn to draw and many artist have too. Either in-between working two jobs or taking care of your family and a job or regular school and chores. YOU just have to take the time or use some time management, it really doesn’t take long to practice for like an hour or less. YOU also don’t have to do it every day, just once or three times a week is fine.

Hope this was helpful and have a great day.

[kotori-mochi]

Incase people missed this.

[aveloka-draws]

How do you draw hands? 

Some notes about hands I hope help a lil✨

[rainintheevening]

Okay, we got a new one, boys.

[fleshengine]

Close enough welcome back Chekov's gun.

[comma-souptra]

Prev you can’t bury this in your own tags

[justbreakonme]

I also like the idea of showing something as a problem before it’s shown as a strength. Almost every character trait has two sides, and by showing the “bad” side first, it sets things up to not only make sense, but to also be very satisfying.

[hacvek]

reminder to worldbuilders: don't get caught up in things that aren't important to the story you're writing, like plot and characters! instead, try to focus on what readers actually care about: detailed plate tectonics

[olyia-stories]

@dragonpyre any chance you could elaborate on this

[dragonpyre]

I grew up learning about land formations. Seeing fictional maps that don’t follow the logic and science of them makes me upset

[serinos-kitt]

What are the most common sins you’ve seen relating to this? I wanna know

[dragonpyre]

Mordor.

Why is the mountain range square. How did the mountain range form. Why is there one singular volcano in the center. Why does it act like a composite volcano but have magma that acts like it’s from a shield. If it’s hotspot based volcanic activity why is there only one volcano.

And then the misty mountains!!!! Why isn’t there a rain shadow!! And why is there a FOREST where the rain shadow should be!!!!!!!!

[serinos-kitt]

So what is a rain shadow?

[lethalbutterfly]

Wind blows clouds in from the sea, but mountains are so tall the clouds can't get past 'em, so you get deserts on the windward side of mountain ranges because clouds can't get there to water the land, or do so only very rarely.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Oh yeah nothing is more annoying than fantasy maps that can't get mountains, rivers and rain shadows right.

[mindfulwrath]

May I recommend my new favorite tool: Mapgen4. You start with a random seed and then add mountains, valleys, shallow water, or oceans as you like. You can adjust the wind direction to make wind shadows off the mountains fall where you want. You can adjust overall raininess to make the rivers larger or smaller, or have more or fewer tributaries. It works best for small, isolated landmasses (think islands more than continents) but as there’s no scale bar and it’s all slightly abstracted anyway you can do whatever you want with it. I’ve only just started playing with it but it’s SO FUN.

[jeanjauthor]

I do think this could be useful for writers! ...Caveat, if you're going to use this for making a map for anything published (digital or paper, even if it's only in a fanfic archive or whatever), please, please credit the creator and their program as how you made that map! The more ways information like this gets out there, the more useful it'll be to other writers, roleplaying game DMs/GMs, creators, etc.

[oh-opossum]

One of my favourites for mapping plates, biomes, etc is Tectonics.js. If you're familiar with how tectonics shape a planet, you can guess where the features go by toggling plates, crust thickness, etc. Between Mapgen4 and Tectonics.js, we've got some pretty sweet tools at our disposal.

[brehaaorgana]

More stuff!:

European Geosciences Union Blog — Beyond Tectonics: Building fictional worlds to better understand our own

Reshaping Reality's Worldbuilding Tips

Worldbuilding pasta's series, An Apple Pie from Scratch also check their resources page!

R/worldbuilding's Reading List. Also check out their collected resources link. This basic geology guide from 11 years ago is still nice.

Creating an Earth-Like Planet, and The Climate Cookbook (aka Geoff's Climate Cookbook) technically the climate cookbook is a part of Creating an Earth like Planet I think.

Related: Worldbuilding Workshop's "Working Out Climates Using Geoff’s Climate Cookbook." Which goes through using the resource in order to map make. Also just the Worldbuilding Workshop in General.

Madeline James Writes's Worldbuilding Guide

Worldbuilding 101 (this links to the Biomes section but there's like...everything.)

Also I would recommend looking into Landscape Archaeology as well! That's because Landscape archeology is basically adding the social/cultural layer on top of all that geology and geography. Environments change when communities live in them, and communities likewise adapt to various environments.

This is a short free introduction to the concept: "Notes on Landscape Archaeology." To summarize, Landscape archaeology sort of like...studies the relation of people to places/spaces (that is, landscapes) in time.

Also this paper [An Archeology of Landscapes] breaks down/introduces the key concepts that I learned which is first that you can form the "construct paradigm" of a landscape from settlement ecology, ritual landscapes, and ethnic landscapes.

And then the highlights of their summary of what constitutes defining a landscape:

Landscapes are not synonymous with natural environments. Landscapes are synthetic (Jackson, 1984, p. 156), with cultural systems structuring and organizing peoples’ interactions with their natural environments ...

Landscapes are worlds of cultural product ... Through their daily activities, beliefs, and values, communities transform physical spaces into meaningful places. ...

Landscapes are the arena for all of a community’s activities. Thus landscapes not only are constructs of human populations but they also are the milieu in which those populations survive and sustain themselves. A landscape’s domain involves patterning in both within-place and between-place contexts ...

Landscapes are dynamic constructions, with each community and each generation imposing its own cognitive map on an anthropogenic world of interconnected morphology, arrangement, and coherent meaning ...

Basically a "landscape" is made by a community living in an environment. Once you have a geological environment that makes sense, landscape archaeology is like... Basically how I feel confident knowing where trade routes would be on a map, where there are areas of continual high conflict, what kinds of agriculture exists where, etc. once the geological stuff is hammered out, it's like...I know how that would influence the local cultures and vice versa. At that point, it's easy to start marking the natural borders, settlements, trade/port cities, and even strategic fortresses. If you have properly put rivers on a map, then marking your port cities is effortless, basically.

Also:

This course syllabus for a Landscape Archaeology class is freely accessible. It includes an online resources page.

Place, Landscape, and Environment: Anthropological Archaeology in 2009

(Landscape Biographies is open access, as is Landscape Archaeology between Art and Science: From a Multi- to an Interdisciplinary Approach. But I wouldn't try to read every essay.)

[dedicatedfollower467]

If you are like me and find it helpful to have video reference for a process/activity in addition to a written guide, Artifexian is a YouTube channel that does a LOT of world building stuff and specifically he's in the process of creating a world following a lot of Worldbuilding Pasta's methodology!

[sassinake]

WOW. but I think I'll just stick to Star Wars worlds that don't make any sense anyway.

[thewritingumbrellas]

Writing advice from my uni teachers:

If your dialog feels flat, rewrite the scene pretending the characters cannot at any cost say exactly what they mean. No one says “I’m mad” but they can say it in 100 other ways.

Wrote a chapter but you dislike it? Rewrite it again from memory. That way you’re only remembering the main parts and can fill in extra details. My teacher who was a playwright literally writes every single script twice because of this.

Don’t overuse metaphors, or they lose their potency. Limit yourself.

Before you write your novel, write a page of anything from your characters POV so you can get their voice right. Do this for every main character introduced.

[writerlyn]

This is legit good writing advice, especially the first bullet point! In playwriting class we did a bit where every bit of dialogue had to be an accusatory question and it was glorious.

[raynbow-writes]

Time to revamp this shit

I need a new name 🤔🤔🤔

[shittycryptids]

An owl that can be used as a pillow. 

[basalt-dnd]

do you have any resources for map building or world generation? I want to try and build my own campaign from scratch, but want to try and get a world map so I can build off of the generated biomes & formations before throwing down all the roots for kingdoms and stuff. thanks so much for all your help!!!

Here are a few resources that might help out! 

Large-scale mapmaking tools:

-Inkarnate (and a guide)

-Donjon (Fantasy world generator) (Fractal world generator)

-AutoREALM (Requires a download)

-City Generator (look through all of the options!)

-Hextml (hex-map)

-GM Friend (hex-map, very simple. Can also be used for dungeons)

-GM World Map

-Gozzys (Can also be used for dungeons)

-Mapforge (there is, in fact, a free version)

-Stonesword (Not the prettiest, but more versatile than you’d think)

For dungeons and other smaller-scale mapping:

-Dave’s Mapper 

-ANAmap by Deepnight 

-Ye Olde Map Maker 

-Dungeon Painter 

-Hobbyte (requires a download)

-Tiamat the Tile Mapper

-Mipui (Very simple)

-RP Tools

-PyMapper

Other Resources:

-RPG Mapshare 

-Historic city maps and r/papertowns

-Obsidian Dawn’s Brushes (can be used to paint features onto maps)

-Gimp (robust, free art software)

-Jon’s Map Tutorial

-Dyson’s Dodecahedron maps

-Plexsoup on Youtube

-r/Mapmaking

-Cartographer’s Guild

[lazzmap]

After the redesign of the Cartography standards, I did another redesign, this time around, I added more details for R&D to help in making map design easier.  Something else that was requested from upper management was the addition of low, medium & high complexity maps, and the workflow chart showing how a map starts and travels through the various steps to completion within our corporate environment at that time at Wizards of the Coast.

I hope this helps everyone in creating their own maps and making gaming more fun and enjoyable for all :)

Cheers!

Lazz

[writerswritecompany]

Plotting by J.L. Bell

[nosuchthingasfiction-blog]

It’s so beautiful.

[korriganbleedingink-deactivated]

THIS

THIS IS MAGNIFICENT MY GODS

[signsoflifeonmars]

IMPORTANT!!!

[mumblingsage]

And when working on the pacing of the story, especially around those protagonist-planning stages, keep in mind the Unspoken Plan Guarantee (plus check out the Playing With Trope pages!)

[scribblesandfeathers]

Adding small moments of existence to your writing 

What I’m talking about is proof of life outside your characters in your world. Not in the sense of ‘talking to the cashier at the checkout’, but things like:

Graffiti etched into a desk your character sits in during an exam

Realising that someone has come along and arranged the cans on the shelf so the labels say something stupid

Dirty vans that have ‘wash me’ written in the dried mud

A coin that has been stuck into a piece of gum on a handrail

Little things that show the world still goes on despite whatever is happening to the characters. 

This helps make the world a world, not just a setting. There are other people with other lives doing stupid, funny, dangerous, things that in no way impact the protagonist. You don’t have to dwell on them, they can only be mentioned briefly in passing during the set up of a scene, but it will help create life within the background of the story and give the characters a chance to briefly think about something other than themselves/their situation.

[writing-in-the-grave]

ATTENTION WRITERS

Google BetaBooks. Do it now. It’s the best damn thing EVER.

You just upload your manuscript, write out some questions for your beta readers to answer in each chapter, and invite readers to check out your book!

It’s SO easy!

You can even track your readers! It tells you when they last read, and what chapter they read!

Your beta readers can even highlight and react to the text!!!

There’s also this thing where you can search the website for available readers best suited for YOUR book!

Seriously guys, BetaBooks is the most useful website in the whole world when it comes to beta reading, and… IT’S FREE.

[shinningstarz]

HEY! BECAUSE OF OP, THEY CREATED A SPECIAL WELCOME IF YOUR FOUND THEM THRU A TUMBLR WELCOME, ITS A YOUTUBE VIDEO.

[writing-in-the-grave]

They also sent me this; which was super cool

[writingonjupiter]

*slams reblog button*

[cianmars]

@findingtallahassee holy shit! This is cool!

[lalalandlala123-deactivated2021]

“Authors retain all rights to works posted on BetaBooks, and can add or remove content at their discretion. BetaBooks makes no claim to any of the work posted on the site.”

Incase anyone was wondering

[ao3commentoftheday]

trying to come up with a title like

[officerjennie]

Sprinkle in some tears, maybe sobbing, and you’ve nailed it.

[kallypsowrites]

Alright guys. Title advice coming at you today.

The title will often be the last thing you come up with because it takes knowing your story and the core of your story to really give it an awesome title. So until you finish it’s okay to title it ‘that story with dragons and stuff’ or ‘project that is personally trying to kill me’. Something like that. Then, when you’re done, ask yourself the following question.

1. Who is the most important character?

2. What is the climax/penultimate moment of the story

3. What is the most significant or symbolic object?

4. What are some particularly memorable lines that encapsulate the story’s theme

5. What are the primary emotions of the story

Now you have building blocks. So let’s look at some titles. (Note you can use this for chapter titles too)

The Harry Potter series is named after its main character but ALSO the most important object in the book. JK picks the mystery that needs to be resolved and puts it right in the title. The philosophers stone, the chamber of secrets, the prisoner of Azkaban etc. they’re just vague enough to intrigue was but also interesting

Other works title it by a character’s nickname/title like ‘the great gatsby’ or ‘the princess bride’ or ‘the hunchback of notredame’

Still others title books based on the major plot events/climax. A game of thrones is titled that because it’s where people start fighting over the throne. A clash of kings reflects the war of five kings. A storm of swords represents the peak of the war. Etc. etc.

Some titles even tell you what happens in the climax (though vaguely). One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest tells us the fate of our lead and we read to see how it happens.

Then we have our significant object titles. This is especially great for episodes/chapter titles. I’m Attack on Titan there’s an episode called ‘a small blade’. It seems unimportant but it’s a blade that a character asks to be left with so he can off himself if necessary (the character is very depressed at this point). His friend tosses it away and refuses to leave him behind. The message here is: keep fighting. So that’s the object that message represents. Another example is ‘to kill a mockingbird’ we don’t know yet but this is symbolic for the death of an innocent. Symbols are great of titles

Then there’s emotions. A lot of times you get punchy one word titles out of this and I use them for chapters a lot: grief, rage, joy etc. but they can be used in full books too. Like: ‘beloved’ or ‘doubt’.

Then there are book titles taken from famous book quotes. “As I lay dying” comes from the odyssey. “Children of men”, “clouds of witnesses” and one million other titles are plays off bible verses.

But Kallypso, you might say. That’s so much information. How do I choose? Well you can think about your genre. If you’re writing a fluffy love fic, a quote or emotion or symbol is the way to go. If you’re writing character driven fic, a play off of a name. If you’re writing plot driven fic, describe the plot vaguely.

Or try them all! Write a title for each category and see which one fits best. And that is your advice for the morning

[damaramegido]

[ORIGINALLY POSTED 7/4/14; LAST UPDATED 5/13/15]

Having trouble finding the perfect idea for your fic? Want to challenge yourself? Want to just get ideas? Hopefully this masterpost will be of some help!

This is perpetually under construction—if you have anything to add, let me know!

BLOGS

ANC Writing Resources

AU Ideas

AUs For Inspiration

Fanfiction Prompts

Imagine Your OTP

Imagine Yuor OTP (for sillier ideas)

OTP Prompts

Promptaholics (mostly fandom-specific)

Roleplay AU Ideas (intended for RPs (duh) but could work for fics as well)

Ultimate AU Ideas

Your Fucked Up OTP (darker prompts, could be triggering)

PROMPTS FOUND ON TUMBLR

AU ideas by Tumblr user aerynlallaboso

AU ideas by Tumblr user angiespeggy

AU ideas by Tumblr user authorkurikuri

Eight Unique Plot Ideas by Tumblr user chloetherph

AU ideas by Tumblr user chxpin

AU ideas by Tumblr user crankgally

AU ideas by Tumblr user crowthis

AU ideas by Tumblr user damaramegido, AKA me

AU ideas by Tumblr user elyncia (1) (2) (3) (4)

AU ideas by Tumblr user primitiveradiogoddess

Masterlist Of Dramatic Storyline Ideas by Tumblr user rp-assistant

AU ideas by Tumblr user saltruism

Situation Ideas For Your Character by Tumblr user shackleboltrp

AU ideas by Tumblr user smallnico (NOTE: There seems to be more than one version of this; this is the OP, though)

AU ideas by Tumblr user tea-and-outer-space

AU ideas by Tumblr user textsfromtitanfood

Masterlist by Tumblr user thesteadyflame

Airport AU ideas by Tumblr user tickatocka

Awkward First Meetings AUs by Tumblr user toxixpumpkin

AU ideas by Tumblr user whatbethsays

AU ideas by Tumblr user xaquaangelx

Things you said… prompts by Tumblr user xfactorera

College AU ideas by multiple users

Halloween AU ideas by multiple users

PROMPTS FOUND ON DEVIANTART

70 Writing Prompts by amorine on dA

Writing prompts by Hinxight on dA (1) (2) (3)

Writing Prompts For You by inubasket on dA

Writing Prompts by LexicoN18 on dA

Prompts by MyMidnightLove on dA

23 Writing Prompts by RayneWolfspeaker on dA

100 Writing Prompts by tehuti on dA

PROMPTS FOUND ELSEWHERE

8 Ways To Say I Love You by R. McKinley

Alternatives To Platonic Love

Prompts From A Hat (can also be found here)

TVTropes (fair warning to those who have never been on this site: you WILL be trapped there for hours)

CHALLENGES AND BINGOS

30 Day OTP Challenge

30 Day NSFW OTP Challenge

30 Day Dark Fandom/OTP Challenge

Cliche Bingo

Horror Bingo

Kink Bingo

Trope Bingo

GENERATORS

Plot Generator

Writing Exercises Plot Generator

FANDOM-SPECIFIC RESOURCES

Various Homestuck generators

Sweeps-to-years converter (Homestuck)

MISCELLANEOUS RESOURCES

Charahub (a site for making character profiles)

Google Drive (requires a Google account, but is an excellent place to write fanfics since it auto-saves and you can access it anywhere!)

Nameberry (good source for names)

Random.org (random number generator–good for picking random things from a list!)

Seventh Sanctum (lots of fun generators and such)

60 Awesome Search Engines For Serious Writers (a masterlist; the OP seems to have deleted their blog, but the post is still there!)

Write Rhymes (generates rhymes for words–super handy for poetry and such!)

Yafnag (fantasy name generator)

Happy writing!

[erkhyan]

Medieval Fantasy City Generator by watabou

Not a game

[plantkat]

Some example maps for folks to see

theres several other palettes and style options, options for adding and removing elements, and a separate site hosting this generator as well, where you can edit the size and seed in the address bar

[oliviapaigewrites-deactivated20]

THIS IS AN IMPORTANT ONE! Don’t ignore this in your writing!

[the-uncultured-lesbian]

It’s about that time of year!!

[aphony-cree]

If any writers are looking for inspiration, there’s a wiki that lists all Hallmark Christmas movies with links to a summary for each. Pick a plot and turn it LGBT+