Writing can often be boring or difficult for auditory learners like me. Sitting in silence to absorb and produce words is not the funnest or easiest thing ever. Here are a few things I do that might help!
Reading your work out loud. It can help you pinpoint things that don’t sound right without reading it inside your mushy brain for the 174th time. Also, I submit to you — reading in different accents. I (an American) read to myself with a British accent. It helps break the repetitiveness of how you’re used to reading it and will illuminate more issues, sort of like changing the font.
Have someone else read it out loud. This eliminates staring at the words for five hours and helps you hear it with someone else’s natural inflection and not the inflection you’ve been reading it in since it’s inception. You will definitely hear if something sounds stupid or not. If you can’t find a friend, you can find online resources that will read what you input, and they can also give you a laugh.
Talk through your characters conversations. Yes, their stutters, their attitude, their weird laugh, their accent — all of it! Embrace your inner actor. Assign yourself a part and have a friend do another! Or change back and forth between characters like one of those “baby it’s cold outside” tiktoks. Or do one character at a time alone in your room. It helps with giving your characters a natural way of speaking that’s human and not monotone, and it is a good way of finding things to input into the conversations that humans do naturally. Let yourself be the character, you’ll find yourself scoffing or chuckling or rolling you eyes and be like, hey, they should do that, too.
If there’s music in a scene, play it while you write that scene. Set the tone, baby. It’s the background music of your tv show, the music playing while your characters talk/dance/sing, and it really does help you feel ingrossed and invested.
If sentences feel weird or like they sound bad but you can’t figure out why, clap, tap, or speak the whole thing out in syllables. This can help you identify consecutive sentences with the same structure so you can make them less repetitive.
big recommend on the talking through character's conversations. I do it all the time and ive been able to develop natural and believable voices for my characters that I can translate to my writing. plus it also helps to figure out little quirks about character interactions as well.
something soft based on this fic by @hero-in-waiting because I spent like a week reading it, saw a good pose reference on Pinterest, and promptly blacked out
Tips For Top Gun Fanfic from a Military Brat/ Gold Star Kid:
Gold Star Kid: A child who lost their parent in the military
1. Army is not synonymous with Navy- They’re in the navy not the army
2. The glasses that bob wears are called BCGS- military issued glasses that are joking called “birth control goggles” bc they’re ugly af
3. Gold Star Kids, (Rooster, Mac, Ect) will normally be familiar with their dads friends even after he passes- the troop will kinda crowd to protect and help the family
4. You cannot live on base after your service member passes, you’ll almost immediately have to move off
5. If you’re married to a service member you have a military ID and base access
6. Deployment communication between partners is usual e-mail!
7. There are gold star events for kids, siblings, and even parents to help with grief! I honestly just think this would be interesting/ cute to add to a story
8. Bradley most likely got free college and probably ended up going after he didn’t get accepted into the naval academy
9. It’s actually not super common to go around in uniform for no reason and you could get in trouble for it
10. And just a random thing; Bradley definitely remembers his dad even though he was young- and honestly a lot of random things in the military probably trigger him. Likes Ices funeral, being on base and hearing TAPS; things like that.
11. Bradley has a copy of his dads tags, and a flag from his funeral
12. Remember that brad also owns a regular camouflage navy uniform just bc it’s hot
13. He also cannot just give you his dog tags lmao- he can give you an old pair but you can’t just keep his current ones.
14. While deployed a service member may only be able to come back for 2 weeks just for the birth of their child and leave again immediately.
If you have any questions you can either comment or dm me; I’m super open to talking about it- and if you have questions specifically about how military handles gold star kids lemme know:)
Can you explain call signs? Also did you have one?
Yeah sure,
So I originally enlisted into the army and I was a fighter pilot for about a year and a half before I got promoted to spec ops. A call sign is a nickname that your peers come up with that is a personal term of endearment that can be viewed as an inside joke. Sometimes they have an acronym associated with them. I have a really good friend whos call sign was ECM (enlisted chick magnet). As for myself I had three callsigns (Most people do not have this many) but I only have one official one that is on my record. I was the only girl in my regimond when I first enlisted so originally before everyone started to know me they called me "Belongsinthe" (last name kitchen hardee har har) but my superior put a stop to that VERY QUICKLY. Next it was DNF (did not finish) because I used to have such bad period cramps and when I would get into high altitude I would basically loose all mental awareness and have to ground myself so I would never finish training exercises but thennnnnn I got an IUD and solved that issue and began climbing to the top (watch me toot my own horn) so they decided that didn't apply anymore. Finally they settled on Tally because as a joke I kept a tally on my console of everytime I beat them in dog fighting and what not.
i really can’t bring myself to blame paul atreides because if i was dehydrated, hot, processing some fresh ass trauma, micro-dosing hallucinogens, and everyone around me was telling me that i’m god i would’ve folded much sooner
Something that gave H.P. Lovecraft nightmares is the work of my favorite artist. In "At the Mountains of Madness" he specifically mentions "the strange and disturbing Asian paintings of Nicholas Roerich."
Ian Stone, Doubting Thomas, oil on linen, 12x16 in, 2023
"If you know the painting by Caravaggio, Doubting Thomas, it was my direct inspiration for this piece.
A doubting Thomas is a skeptic who refuses to believe without direct personal experience. 50-60 years ago, it was not uncommon for people to think or believe that being gay was a phase or a mental illness or deviance in some shape or form. It's embarrassing that the same things are being said about trans people today."
T/W: Hinted non-explicit suicide attempt, references to depression
A/N: I'm not in a good space so here is some angst to vent! These men were born and raised during war and political instability, so their understanding of mental health is terrible. GN! reader
Hashirama:
You were the light of his life always laughing and smiling
Whenever he was stressed with Hokage duties he took refuge in you
He never sensed anything was wrong until you tried to kill yourself
He's the one that found you and healed you
The village was supposed to be a safe place for his loved ones yet you were not safe in the village he built
He blames himself. He feels like your happiness, and everyone in his village is his responsibility. He's your partner and your Hokage
Away from you, he starts drinking and gambling a lot to forget what happened and distract himself
Tobirama has to eventually find him and sober him up
His brother informs him that he needs to stop being self-destructive and blaming himself for what happened
Bags are now permanently under his eyes. He clings to you in sleep now, not out of love, but because he's terrified of losing you like he has lost so many
He's lost brothers, family and friends to war. To protect his loved ones was one of the reasons for creating the village But he can't protect you from yourself
He is an amazing healer so there are no physical scars on you. However, every time he sees you, he sees those injuries on you- he is forever scared mentally
He loves you and he drains himself trying to keep you happy
He doesn't show you he is struggling at all, he is scared his depression will cause you to spiral downward and attempt to take your life again
So he puts on a happy, joyous and carefree mask. Now he is performing at home as well as performing as Hokage and clan head
He secretly asks Tobirama to watch you when he is unable to. Tobirama starts to dislike you. You burden his brother, himself and the village. To him you are a liability, a weakness of his brother and a danger to the village. He would never hurt anyone his brother loves but he advises Hashirama to break up with you and tries to convince you to leave Hashirama, and preferably the village
Tobirama
He's angry and he's disappointed but mostly at himself because he feels so powerless
Despite being an amazing tactician, he didn't predict and prevent this. He feels so inadequate and starts doubting himself
Ever the logical man, he sees there's a problem and he wants to fix it. And nothing will get in the way, not even you
However, emotions do not follow logical thought, and you cannot apply cold logic to something as complicated as mental health
To you, he visibly becomes colder and more distant however he is trying to do the opposite. He expresses his love through acts of service but he is so emotionally incompetent it comes off as him being controlling, which he is but he wants to help you. He just has no idea how
He never opens up about his mental health. The trauma of being a child soldier, having an abusive father, trying to protect his brothers from abuse, losing his brothers, his alienation from being albino and autistic (my headcanon), PTSD, his strained relationship with his brother…
In his mind, as long as you can do your job as a shinobi, housewife, or merchant… and contribute to your village and/or clan, you are fine. Happiness and personal fulfilment come from knowing your place and fulfilling you are not contributing then that is a problem. If you're not doing your duty then that is a problem that needs to be fixed
He views people like cogs in a machine, if you are not doing your job then that is a problem. If you are doing your job, then there is no problem
He'll make sure you are physically well and then try to get you back to work because then that means everything is fixed
He will never talk about it, he wants to forget it, ignore it suppress it- like all his other emotions
But secretly, when he can, he'll create a shadow clone to follow you around to make sure you're safe
He will also put a seal on you that allows him to teleport to you if he senses that you're in danger. If you refuse he'll do it anyway without your permission because it's the smart thing to do and he cares about you. Your safety is more important to him than you liking him
At night when he comes back late and you are fast asleep, he'll hold you and silently cry a bit because he doesn't want to lose you.
You will never find out, he wants to be strong for both of you. In his mind no emotions = strong
In his mind, you have too many emotions, so he needs to show even fewer emotions to avoid triggering you. This is very unhealthy for everyone
After his brother advises him, he tries to be more outwardly affectionate. Even though he doesn't understand the need of pointing out the obvious, he compliments you more and kisses you on the forehead before going to work every day. Just know that he loves you
Madara
Hashirama is the one to tell Madara about your attempt. He was the medic-nin that saved you and, mainly, because everyone else is too scared of Madara to tell him
Madara is angry and scared. He is one of the most powerful shinobi to have ever existed. He has one of the most powerful Kekkei Genkai, yet he couldn't protect you. He can't protect you from yourself
The way he deals with his feelings of powerlessness is to label you unworthy
If you let your thoughts almost kill you- then you are truly weak. He grew up in a war zone where everyone was trying to kill him and he's perfectly fine! (He's not)
While you recover, he'll check up on you and make sure you're healing but he won't talk about what happened at all. Once you physically recover from your attempt, he'll break up with you
He's the clan head and his future spouse would become the clan matriarch (or the gender-neutral equivalent), taking on a lot of roles and responsibilities. Madara can't have someone he views as weak representing the Uchiha, it would make the Uchiha seem vulnerable and his job is ultimately to protect the clan. Madara also worries that the stress from the job will worsen you're mental health
After the break up he'll disappear for your life completely. If you try to visit him he will never be in. He won't be in his office if you're there- you won't even see him out in the street. It will be like you were never together
Secretly, he will start stalking you because he's worried but has no idea how to help you
He stops eating or sleeping regularly because he's too worried. Also, you were the one to remind him to eat and drink. His own physical and mental health declines
Hashirama becomes increasingly worried about his friend and tries to convince Madara to talk to you
Madara has already lost Izuna and the rest of his family, he can't lose you too. He knocks on your door with some food hoping you'll start the conversation
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