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And then, I flew

@saluzozette / saluzozette.tumblr.com

22, female, honestly don't know what's going on with this blog at this point...
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Growing up with your starters

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chabbit

The captions are also really cute, although they mostly describe what’s in each photo:

Bulbasaur: Somehow, nomming on my clothes… has become a weird habit of theirs.

Venusaur: That hasn’t changed now that they’ve grown, but they’re very gentle.

Charmander: It’s my first attempt, but I made a plushie so that he wouldn’t get lonely.

Charizard: That plushie seems to be his favorite even now.

Squirtle: Squirtle’s a bit timid and hides behind me at the smallest things.

Blastoise: Looks like they’re scared of the first Pichu they’ve seen. You’re not really hiding!

This is adorable

You forgot these!!!

I’m disappointed that these were left out

SO MANY GOOD ONES AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

If I ever don’t reblog this, kill me

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Some more tidbits from my grandmother’s WWII diaries which did not fit in the last post:

  • she got a secretary job for the railway service because she had heard that was a good place to help the Resistance, and indeed she was soon contacted to leak train schedules (so Resistants could sabotage freight & ammunition trains going to Germany) and administrative info to help people escape deportation. She writes that she hopes it’s “a little bit of help” and that it will sound “more formidable when I talk about it later—in reality it is almost mundane, not at all like what you read about in books”, and she often feels like she is “playing pretend”
  • This sentiment comes back a lot at the beginning of her war journal, a kind of surreal feeling, almost impostor’s syndrome, like she can’t take herself seriously as a person living through a war. In 1940 she tries to enter the “forbidden zone” where her former house is, to salvage some items before the house is looted, and a German soldier offers her a lift so she won’t have trouble with the sentries. She refuses, and he sighs and says in bad French “Malheur, la guerre.” (“War—what grief.”) She writes that she had this impression again, that they were all “playing war”, playing a role, and everyone felt weird about it
  • her fiancé (my grandfather) was among the young men planting bombs on railway tracks to derail freight trains, and he would occasionally steal from a wagon (having no compunction about it as it was stuff the Nazis had stolen) and she & her sister would find an excuse to go out so they could all open the “surprise barrel” together. They thought it was a lot of fun as they never knew what the contents would be—sometimes food, sometimes a barrel full of wine, and once they found items from the looting of a church: crucifixes, rosaries, prayer books and the relic of a saint. She mentions it several times in her diary afterwards, always quite wryly, “We’ve had 52 alerts in 3 days, it’s exhausting having to run to the basement so many times every night, but I know we’re safe, for we have my bone of Saint What’s-His-Name”
  • 1941 is the first time she writes that she feels like she is “living through a chapter of history”, and it’s because she started using old bicycle tyres to make new soles for her shoes, and unravelling wool jumpers to mix the yarn colours and knit “new” jumpers, which “are things you’d read about in books about war.” She gives a jumper to each of her sisters, who are happy about it and say it feels like they are really getting new clothes, and she comments “Nous voilà devenues des héroïnes de Victor Hugo” (“We’ve now become Victor Hugo characters”)
  • I love the amount of times she compares her life to books—when her fiancé, who was about to be deported for forced labour in Germany, changes his identity and tries to escape to the unoccupied zone (the South of France) and then to Morocco, hoping she can join him later in Casablanca, she is very anxious but also notes how strange it feels to even write these words, which seem right out of a novel.
  • she was nearly 20 (in 1940) the first time her mother allowed her fiancé to visit her at home (they had to stay in the kitchen, with a chaperone) after he came saying he brought his stamp book to trade stamps with her. They have fun calling each other Monsieur and Mademoiselle again, as was proper (they had long switched to using first names when their parents weren’t around); her fiancé confesses to her that he spent weeks taking stamps off of any envelop he could get his hands on, to improvise a stamp collection so he had a wholesome excuse to visit her at home. She finds the idea brilliant. They do not end up trading stamps, seeing as the “chaperone” is her older sister Geneviève who kindly spends the whole hour “very busy looking for something in the pantry”
  • at one point she writes bitterly that she queued up nearly the entire day at a grocery shop that was supposed to still have some chocolate and coffee, as she & her sisters were desperate for either. Instead the only things she was given in exchange for her ration tickets were one fourth of a loaf of bread, a small packet of washing soda and a “hat so shapeless you can hardly tell it is a béret”. She writes that her little sister Simone didn’t even fight her for the béret, “voilà à quel point il est laid” (“that’s how ugly it is.”)
  • she is interrogated by the Nazis again in 1942 and starts to fear that she is about to get caught leaking all this info about transits to Germany, so she goes to the regional director of the train service (who lives in her street) for help. He tells her that trusting him was very dangerous, “What makes you think I’m not an informer?” and she says “Sir you only have one arm. You are a disabled WWI veteran so I assumed you weren’t too fond of Germans.” She then writes: “Je tremblais en entrant dans la pièce. J’aimerais être de ces filles hardies…!” (“I was shaking as I entered the room. I wish I were one of these daring girls…!”)

(One of the very few pictures taken of her during the war)

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ophanic

props to stem people wtf! i can bullshit my way through any english essay because literally u just have to say stuff. but for stem paper u have to say stuff AND it has to be true. wack. 

props to hums people wtf! i can bullshit my way through any stem essay because literally u just have to repeat stuff. but for a hums paper u have to say stuff AND it has to be new stuff from your brain. wack. 

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A dating service where matching is based on people’s search history exists. You’re a serial killer. You go on a date with a writer.

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endreams-s

Serial Killer: metaphorically, if you were to kill someone, how would you do it?

Writer: Air shot between the toes, it’ll look like a heart attack.

Serial Killer who is obviously in love already: *sucks in a breath* ok

Writer: how long would it take to die if you were to potentially stab someone in the guts

Serial killer: anywhere from 2 to 30 minutes

Writer, already bringing a ring out: *shaking* thanks

A++ addition

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tetsuskitten

Writer: *shows the serial killer the murder scene they’re writing* babe, i’m not sure if this would actually work?

Serial killer: *kisses writer on the forehead and leaves, comes back later, a suspicious scent of blood coming off them* it works baby, you’re doing great

I LOVE THIS

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vmohlere

Oh no, murder comedy is my jam

I love this, I love all of this, but quick question, does the author know? Like are they aware that their significant other is a serial killer or do they just think that they have a morbid sense of humor? It’d be even funnier if the author had no fucking clue, like how Aurthur Conan Doyle was apparently stupidly gullible, and on top of it they’re a horror or crime novelist. Like the serial killer works at a butcher shop or something so it’s completely normal for them to come home smelling like blood, no murders going on here, no sirey. Just my darling coming back home from a long day at work.

Now fast forward a bit and the author has managed to get their first book published, with loving support from the serial killer who helped them fine tune all the murder scenes, and it’s a big hit. Enough so that a detective with the local police department has noticed some disturbing similarities to several active cases, including details that were never released to the press. Obviously he brings this up to his superior and convinces him that there’s something to the theory, but it’s all circumstantial right now. He stakes out the author’s home and is super convinced that the author is the murderer, but they don’t seem to do anything??? Like they literally are at the house all day, that’s it. Most they do is leave for groceries.

So you get this dynamic of the serial killer mining the author for creative murder schemes, the author being lovingly encouraged by the serial killer, and finally the detective who is just so sure that the author is the killer and that if he sticks it out long enough he’ll FINALLY have proof.

Plot twist, The serial killer and detective use to go out so it gets sub what personal. 

“You need to stop seeing them. I think they are a serial killer.”

Serial killer breaths in. “Look-”

World Heritage Post

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How I never have to face an empty page when I write

First, I write down very roughly what needs to happen in this scene.

For example, take an early scene from my wip. The main character’s mentor has just died in the previous scene. And what’s worse, he’s killed by the magical Library she loves so much. What needs to happen in this next scene?

  • She brings the terrible news of the mentor’s death and the Library’s betrayal to the mentor’s widow (who gives her a key to the Library, minor detail).
  • She brings the news to the major, who is responsible of anything concerning the Library and who is indirectly the reason the mentor went into the Library in the first place.
  • At the end of this scene, the second main character is briefly introduced.

Then I start asking myself as many questions as I can.

  1. What does the Main Girl Character (MGC) feel after her mentor’s death?
  2. What does the MGC do with the key she gets from the widow?
  3. How and when does the widow give her the key?
  4. What is the first thing the MGC does when the mentor dies?
  5. What does the widow do when she sees the MGC and the mentor?
  6. How does the widow react? What does she feel? Did she expect it to happen someday? Does she stay icy calm or does she scream? (pieta)
  7. What does the widow look like?
  8. What is the widow like, as a person?
  9. How does the MGC know she has to go to the major? Is there some kind of police, or is he the mentor’s boss or something?
  10. Does the MGC trust the major?
  11. Can she trust the major?
  12. What is the major like, as a person? Nice? Belittling?
  13. What does the MGC tell the major? What does he want to know?
  14. What kind of new information does the MGC get out of this conversation?
  15. What does the office of the major look like? Where is it?
  16. What kind of a person is the Main Boy Character (MBC)?
  17. What is the MBC wearing?
  18. What does the MBC say to the MGC?
  19. What was his reaction when he heard the news? How did he feel?
  20. How does the major react? How does he feel?
  21. How far is it from the major to the MGC’s home? How much time does the MGC have to inform the MBC and how much time does the MBC have to react and to comfort the MGC? I just realise the MBC already knows (probably from her parents?) because otherwise he wouldn’t be waiting for her at the major’s office.
  22. How did the MGC’s parents tell the MBC? Why would they tell him? Maybe he called her house or he came by because he knew she went to see the Library but he doesn’t know yet that it killed the mentor?

See, I’m already filling my page so that it doesn’t look that intimidatingly empty.

Next, it’s answers time. I go through all the questions and make up a satisfying answer. Sometimes I get it right straight away, sometimes I have to brainstorm for four pages before hitting the suitable solution. 

Since this is still preparation, I don’t have to worry about the quality of my writing style - I’m just thinking on paper. Often, this paradoxally means I write relaxed and I end up using whole bits of my preparation in my first draft.

After I have answered all the questions I want (often some become obsolete by answering other questions), I write out the scene again, in bullets or telegraph style, but with the detail and richness I have found in my answers. That usually takes me one page.

And only THEN I start writing my first draft. I see everything perfectly clear in my head and I even have bits of text I can use from my prep, so writing the first draft is way more chill than just writing it cold.

I do this before every scene, but you can also use this technique only when you get stuck or when you have to write a scene you’re dreading. You would think it’s inefficient and it takes too much time, but this technique keeps my thoughts focussed on my story (I’m a daydreamer) and it keeps the imposter syndrome at bay.

On average, my prep is 1,5 times the length of my written scene, but this process makes my writing so much richer. Not everything I make up in the Q&A phase ends up in my scene, especially questions like “what does the place look like”, “what is the character wearing” or “how long does it take them to walk from A to B”, but I find I can write the scene better if I know the answer, even if the reader doesn’t need to know.

Anyway, this is how I do it. Thanks for listening to my TED talk!

I’m gonna tag a few people who I admire, who I hope are interested. Feel free to ignore me if you aren’t.

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I had a dream that the king and the queen of a small country had a daughter. They needed a son, a first-born son, so in secret, without telling anyone of their child’s gender, they travelled to the nearby woods that were rumoured to house a witch.

They made a deal with that witch. They wanted a son, and they got one. A son, one made out of clay and wood, flexible enough to grow but sturdy enough to withstand its destined path, enchanted to look like a human child. The witch asked for only one thing, and that was for their daughter.

They left the girl readily.

The witch raised her as her own, and called her Thyme. The princess grew up unknowing of her heritage, grew up calling the witch Mama, and the witch did her very best to earn that title.

She was taught magic, and how to forage in the woods, how to build sturdy wooden structures and how to make the most delicious stews. The girl had a good life, and the witch was pleased.

The girl grew into a woman, and learned more and more powerful magics, grew stronger from hauling wood and stones and animals to cook, grew smarter as the witch taught her more.

She learned to deal with the people in the villages nearby, learned how to brew remedies and medicines and how to treat illness and injury, and learned how to tell when someone was lying. 

Every time the pair went into town, the people would remark at just how similar Thyme was to her mother. 

(Thyme does not know who and what she is. She does not know that she was born a princess, that she was sold. She only knows that one night after her mother read her a story about princesses and dragons, her mother had asked her if she ever wanted to be a princess.)

((Thyme only knows that she very quickly answered no. She likes being a witch, thank you very much, she likes the power that comes with it and the way that she can look at things and know their true nature.))

The witch starts preparing the ritual early, starts collecting the necessities in the winter so they can be ready by the fall equinox. Her daughter helps, and does not ask what this is for, just knows that it is important.

The witch looks at Thyme, both their hands raised into the air over a complicated array of plants, tended carefully to grow into a circle, and says, sorry.

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