The Writing Mage

A writer who really doesn't write. They/Them and call me M.

[pronouncingitwang]

at some point in your life you will be boiling fruit, water, sugar, and lemon juice in a pot to make a syrup or jam. the instructions will tell you to simmer for a certain amt of time. your timer will go off and you will look at the pot and go, "hm, this doesn't look thick enough. maybe i'll let it go for another 10 minutes." this is the devil speaking. it's only so liquid right now because it is at boiling point. it will thicken when it cools down. learn from the follies of my youth and do not let this happen to you

[yokowan]

at some point in your life you will be making a sauce or a stew in which you need to add cornstarch to thicken it. and you will prepare a slurry of starch in cold water and think "this looks like way too little starch to thicken this amount of liquid." this is the devil speaking. cornstarch instantly polymerizes at 95°C and if you add too much it will turn into an impossibly thick goop.

[le-jardin-inculte]

at some point in your life you will be making some sort of cream based dessert that requires gelatin to thicken it. and you will soak some gelatin sheets in water and think "this is too few gelatin sheets for this amount of cream." this is the devil speaking. it will thicken in the fridge and if you add too much you will end up with milk jelly

[shithowdy]

at some point in your life you will be baking cookies. you will take the sheet out after twelve minutes as the recipe instructs and the cookies will still be glistening and soft. "these don't seem cooked enough," you will think to yourself, "i should place them back into the oven until their edges are nice and golden." this is the devil talking. this is how you get dry, overdone cookies. the cookies will continue to bake on the warm sheet for several more minutes and then harden up after sitting on a rack for a while. trust the process. trust the process.

[whitachi]

at some point in your life you will be adding a small pasta to a soup and you will think "that is not enough small pasta." this is the devil talking. the pasta will absorb the stock and expand. this is how you end up with a soup that is a solid mass of soggy ditalini.

[araceil]

At some point in your life you will be adding garlic to a dish and you will think "that is not enough garlic." These are angels speaking. They are correct. Add more garlic.

[necronatural]

Compiled some basic information I know about drawing fat characters for beginners since I've been seeing more talk about absence of really basic traits in a lot of art lately.

Morpho Fat and Skin Folds on Archive.org (for free!)

[tuttle-did-it]

draw more fabulous fat people.

[callmebliss]

Y’ever read something and have understanding that has eluded you interminably suddenly stop, curl up, and snuggle neatly into a fold in your brain because a new way way opened to it?

[macleod]

I've seen this passed around a few times, and I have one thing to say:

It's online. The book was carefully and wonderfully recreated online by hand. You can find it here. The entire book is this easy.

calculusmadeeasy.org

[callmebliss]

TIL the highest honor is to be consigned to the processing vortex

[hometoursandotherstuff]

Justin posted the 1956 house he and his wife bought in Jasper, Indiana. It is a complete time capsule. Absolutely NOTHING has been updated or touched.  

Everything is still here- look at the appliances. All original. This is not like the classy expensive updated mid century homes we’ve seen before. 

The furniture has to be the original pieces and sets the previous owners bought. 

The wall hangings are aged.

This is an interesting piece, this bar. 

Look at the bathroom- pink fixtures.

Those lamps!

The master bath has a yellow tub and fixtures.

A 2nd bdm. Even the bedding is vintage.

And, this bath has blue Fixtures. Wow, I would definitely keep them.

More cool lamps and original furniture in the knotty pine family room. 

Wow, look at the built-ins in the office.

The lower floor.

The basement is cool- look at that floor! And, the TV. The bar is classic. I wonder if they were leaving any of this.

Off the rec room is a 2nd kitchen. A pink fridge!

And, there’s this room, too. Look at the stone wall.

for the love of old houses

[stonedrunkwizard]

I’m reblogging this just because it’s great reference. Who knows if i ever get the chance to draw a fifties living room?

[minim-calibre]

@teatotally – please join me in whimpering with a strong need to go to there.

[theriu]

Wow, honestly this is the first time I’ve seen a pristine 50s house that made me go “Oh THAT’S why they made those choices”??? Like, you usually only see old houses looking VERY worn-down and kinda sad, but this looks like we time-traveled into the past when it was new and tidy, and suddenly some of those choices that feel odd today make SENSE, because while they were new and loved, the now-odd furniture and appliance colors and whatnot look NICE. It’s still an “outdated” style but it doesn’t look “old.” Very neat glimpse at history!

[charlemane]

writing tip: searching "[place of origin]ish names" will get you a lot of stuff and nonsense made up by baby bloggers.

searching "[place] census [year]" will get you lists of real names of real people who lived in that place.

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

I feel like I'm constantly shilling for them but BehindTheName.com, the only baby name site that doesn't feel like it's run by mommy bloggers, includes census-based graphs for dozens of countries/regions (though not all of them go back very far yet)

And you can expand them to see rank, number of babies, and percentage of babies and add a second name to compare. (in 1973 four percent of babies were named Jennifer! 1 in 25!!!)

Also this. Cursed.

[emperorsfoot]

@homoqueerjewhobbit what name did you search for your example, and what's going on with Moldova?

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

Those are the graphs for Samuel. They only have 1 year's data for Moldova right now, so that's why it's a straight line. Similarly, they only have 2 years for Mexico right now. The US goes back to 1880. I'm not sure how much of that is publicly available/translated records and how much of it is that it's like 1 or 2 guys maintaining a website of 27000 names and a finite amount of time to format and upload.

Here's the list of all of the countries/regions they have popularity statistics for if you want to nerd out on it!

[some-teeth-in-a-trench-coat]

You can't advertise BehindTheName for writers without mentioning the advanced search! You can search names based on cultural origin and usage, gender (including unisex), meaning, and even things like meter and number of syllables, or famous namesakes (you can also see a list of famous namesakes on every name's page, along with meaning, history, related names, alternate spellings in different languages, the above popularity graphs, and more).

I wouldn't even call BehindTheName a baby name site. They have a surname sister site and a random name generator with tons of variables to set that is very clearly intended to be used for fictional characters (iirc it can even generate a cause of death? I haven't looked at it in many years so it might have changed but these things predate generative AI so unless it's been forcefully enshittified it shouldn't be slop). Like, you can use it for baby names, but the website isn't explicitly intended for that purpose. This website caters to us.

[misscrazyfangirl321]

Hey someone suggested I use ChatGPT to figure out adulting today, and as I was going through the mental list of places I'd rather look, I realized "beloved strangers on Tumblr dot net" was on that list.

So if you have an aspect of adulting that you're really good at-taxes, budgeting, cooking, insurance, credit, time management, house upkeep, anything-please feel free to reblog with any tips.

[notcruvusmemes]

Not me, but @bitchesgetriches has a lot of great resources for many of these topics on their website.

[bitchesgetriches]

That's us! Professional internet adults, specializing in financial stuff! We recommend starting with our Grand List of All Articles, or one of our Masterposts:

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need To Know About Taxes

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about How to Increase Your Income

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Retirement and How to Retire

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Credit and Credit Cards

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Investing for Beginners

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about How to Pay off Debt

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need To Know About Living Independently for the First Time

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Repairing Our Busted-Ass World

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Self-Care

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Getting a Job, Raise, or Promotion

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Saving Money and Being Frugal

[pothos-prince]

So I can find this later.

[milfyspamton]

anyone remember what these things are called like little cartoony expressive doohickies i think they have a real name but i can’t remember

[milfyspamton]

im not fucking crazy.

[milfyspamton]

if i have one more person say sparkles on this post im gonna blow i swear to god

[evengirlierballs]

They're squeans I'm pretty sure! If they pop like that anyway. But the term for this kind of "symbol to refer to the general vibe of something in art" is called "Emanata" because it emanates from a person or object.

[wildsurvival]

[bear--hearted]

This is a beautiful graphic but it doesn’t explain the pros and cons of each fire type.

The Swedish torch is good for an efficient and contained fire, it’s controlled and good for cooking over and produces less light and heat than other fires. It can be difficult to keep going once you burn through the original log

The teepee is your traditional campfire. Good for heat and light not great for cooking, burns through fuel fairly quickly

The star fire is one of the slowest burning and not well protected but provides an even heat good for slow cooking and is excellent if you have limited fuel and need the protection a fire can provide

The lean to is a compact and efficient fire that evolves into a dense and hot bed of coals. The structure creates a good source of air flow which can help damp wood burn. A slightly better cooking fire that isn’t as bright. It also provides protection from wind on one side

The platform fire is incredibly hot and will create a very thick bed of coals but it doesn’t have a lot of air flow and is a little harder to get started.

The log cabin is big and bright and has lots of air flow which again is good for damp logs. You can also use this structure to start a smaller fire in the middle while drying out bigger logs. This fire will crumble into a messier bed of coals that don’t produce particularly even heat for cooking.

The modified leanto is excellent if you need it to perform multiple functions. The side with more fuel will burn bright and hot and the side with less fuel will burn less hot but more evenly and controlled, this gives you different cooking options.

[rinitachan]

reblogging for writing purposes. the exact reason will come soon enough.

[midwinterhunt]

hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

[wolvesbane1]

Just gonna, save this for later-

[syn4k]

burning text gif maker

heart locket gif maker

minecraft advancement maker

minecraft logo font text generator w/assorted textures and pride flags

windows error message maker (win1.0-win11)

FromSoftware image macro generator (elden ring Noun Verbed text)

image to 3d effect gif

vaporwave image generator

microsoft wordart maker (REALLY annoying to use on mobile)

you're welcome

[mmelete]

[justangrymacaroni]

knitting tutorial made by a twenty-something knitting influencer: 18 min long, 12 of those minutes being the intro and a sponsor plug, they show the first few steps of the tutorial at the slowest speed known to man, they show the most important steps at a neck-break speed, they stop every five seconds to talk about what they just did, 40,000 comments filled with questions ranging from insightful to “how do i knit”, filmed with a camera that costs more than a car, the tutorial is incorrect.

knitting tutorial made by a seventy-something grandmother: two min long, filmed 17 years ago, shows you what you want with the skilled patient hands of a beloved deity, made with the world’s shittiest camera, the best video on the fucking internet, four comments and 30 views, you lose the video and never find it again.

[justangrymacaroni]

two things i’m noticing in the notes:

1. every artist/crafter/cook agreeing that influencers in their communities also pull shit like this

2. ppl shouting out their fav old lady tutorials and being like “i would die for u diane”

[justangrymacaroni]

everyone in the notes was being super lovely and dropping their fav tutorials/crafters, so i made a list of some of them (sorry if i missed any!):

Joanne’s web (knitting and crochet)

Knitting with Suzanne Bryan (knitting)

EliZZa (German knitting community)

Jane Loures (cooking)

Happy Berry Crochet (crochet)

Sue Ripsch (chainmaille jewelry)

SeaLemonDIY (book binding)

FourKeysBookArts (book binding)

sheilasknittingtipsandtricks

VeryPinkKnits (several recs for this!)

Mick Grewcock (bow making)

Mrs Nadelspiel (knitting)

Winwick Mums Knit n Natter (knitting Facebook group)

Cutsey Crafts (embroidery)

Twinsday (sewing)

Creative Grandma (crochet)

Das Bookbinding (bookbinding)

Yoyomax12 (baking)

Sharon B (doll repainting)

Nimbleneedles (knitting)

Chasing Sunraee (crochet)

Heindselman’s Knit & Chasing Sunraee (crochet)

Heindselman’s Knit & Gifts (America’s oldest knitshop)

Ivor Sorefingers (guitar)

Elly Everyday (overnight sourdough recipe)

K3n Slowstitch (stitching)

Miss Nancy/Nancy Zieman (PBS knitting episodes for free on youtube)

Roxanne Richardson (knitting)

Imamu Room Husbento (bento box making)

Nerdforge (bookbinding)

Jess Huff (amigurumi)

Nerdy Knitting (knitting)

Gayle Francis (crochet)

Bag-o-day Crochet (crochet)

Sewing with Nancy (sewing)

Felts by Philippa (felting)

Sowoolly (knitting)

Nadelspiel (knitting)

Lacefromireland (lace)

Bill Souza (yarn crafts for left handed folks)

and my personal fav that I just had to look up:

Glendalf, who made a tutorial for fixing a prius battery.

[chic-beyond-the-wall]

More medieval dyes for y'all!

[sockdreams]

TMYK

[maccreadysbaby]

Some of my favorite words and phrases to describe a character in pain

coiling (up in a ball, in on themselves, against something, etc)

panting (there’s a slew of adjectives you can put after this, my favorites are shakily, weakly, etc)

keeling over (synonyms are words like collapsing, which is equally as good but overused in media)

trembling/shivering (additional adjectives could be violently, uncontrollably, etc)

sobbing (weeping is a synonym but i’ve never liked that word. also love using sob by itself, as a noun, like “he let out a quiet sob”)

whimpering (love hitting the wips with this word when a character is weak, especially when the pain is subsiding. also love using it for nightmares/attacks and things like that)

clinging (to someone or something, maybe even to themselves or their own clothes)

writhing/thrashing (maybe someone’s holding them down, or maybe they’re in bed alone)

crying (not actual tears. cry as in a shrill, sudden shout)

dazed (usually after the pain has subsided, or when adrenaline is still flowing)

wincing (probably overused but i love this word. synonym could be grimacing)

doubling-over (kinda close to keeling over but they don’t actually hit the ground, just kinda fold in on themselves)

heaving (i like to use it for describing the way someone’s breathing, ex. “heaving breaths” but can also be used for the nasty stuff like dry heaving or vomiting)

gasping/sucking/drawing in a breath (or any other words and phrases that mean a sharp intake of breath, that shite is gold)

murmuring/muttering/whispering (or other quiet forms of speaking after enduring intense pain)

hiccuping/spluttering/sniffling (words that generally imply crying without saying crying. the word crying is used so much it kinda loses its appeal, that’s why i like to mix other words like these in)

stuttering (or other general terms that show an impaired ability to speak — when someone’s in intense pain, it gets hard to talk)

staggering/stumbling (there is a difference between pain that makes you not want to stand, and pain that makes it impossible to stand. explore that!)

recoiling/shrinking away (from either the threat or someone trying to help)

pleading/begging (again, to the threat, someone trying to help, or just begging the pain to stop)

Feel free to add your favorites or most used in the comments/reblogs!

[drawbabybirddraw]

[lesbian-disaster-academic]

i used to be so good at writing strong, thoroughly-researched, thoroughly-edited essays.

as a kid in hs, my teacher literally came up to me, holding my 40 page essay on the intersection of the European witch hunts and capitalism/exploitation/gender roles (it was supposed to be 7 pages...whoops) and went like "this is literally a master's-degree level thesis. what are you doing?? you could literally use this as your final dissertation in a master's program, what the fuck."

NOW??? NOW?? you'd think I'd be oh so skilled. but alas. i can barely piece together two ideas. adhd skill-regression is so so real. im SOBBING

[revenantscholar]

The skill can come back and it often does. It is not unusual for it skill recedes during stressful and painful times. Maybe you just need more stability/safety/kind people around you.

I have been through something similar a few times in my life with writing, yoga, studying...

Admittedly, my life is always financially and socially precarious, so my notion of stability currently just means "enough money to pay the rent and food for the next few months."

It is hard to hold onto anything when you have to fight for survival all the time, either materially or emotionally.

[lesbian-disaster-academic]

Wow, uh. Okay, I'm gonna need a minute to process "It is hard to hold onto anything when you have to fight for survival all the time...". You're genuinely rewiring my brain is we speak.

Thank you, this means a lot to hear. <3

[revenantscholar]

Thank you as well. We have to help each other in this hellscape whenever we can.

[art-res]

Human Anatomy for Artist Unofficial Search Helper

They also have an animal one that I linked a whole back on the same site !

[chicinlicin]

it’s time to trace~!

heads up. the charts in the middle are very rough guides. everything about copying is super grey, you need to use your own judgement…also I have more notes

Keep reading

[xidyl]

Honestly there’s such an unnecessary stigma with tracing, regardless of the context. I used to trace all the time to better understand anatomy, and I still do!

[guiltyidealist]

Right? It’s literally the best way to develop an understanding of anatomical shapes, proportions, angles, movements, and limits