Can we talk about Finn for a minute? I keep reading that Finn gets described as “flat” or “boring” by some in the Star Wars fandom. Obviously everyone’s entitled to their opinion. But I’ll tell you, from my perspective? He’s one of the most unique, charismatic Star Wars characters out there.

1. Finn humanized stormtroopers. Made us experience panic and terror at the terrible choices they have to make. Stormtroopers, who were practically a joke in the other movies – white plastic statutes that existed just to get shot and clatter into a pile.

2. Finn’s flight with Poe Dameron is an explosion of emotion. That scene blew me away. Both of them had so much fun with it, and you can see Finn feel the real impact of having a name, rather than being a number.

3. Finn is profoundly empathetic and protective. Hell, I swear he cares about BB8 when he has to describe the plane crash, and Poe’s “death”, to the droid.

4. Finn shows tremendous range in this movie. Traumatized (stormtrooper battle), jocular (”you got a boyfriend?”), joyous (”that’s one hell of a pilot”), wistful (”Take care of yourself. Please.”), angry (ligthsaber battle), I could go on. I like Luke Skywalker as much as the next fan, but I think Finn shows more range in this one film than Luke did in all three.

5. Finn’s story arc is powerful, subversive, and inspiring. Going from a number to a name. Finding a family after being taken from his home as a child. Turning his back on the First Order and then realizing he needs to go further, and embrace the cause of the Resistance.

6. Finn’s relationship with Rey. I’m gonna get choked up about this, so I’ll just say John Boyega is an amazing actor, and I loved every scene he had with Daisy Ridley.

Anyway that’s my fangirling contribution. To me, Finn’s amazing.

Gif courtesy of @kit-harington

Preach.

gabrielthemoose:

@rosemoonweaver

No, reading/creating dark fiction to deal with ptsd or other mental illness is not just re-traumatising selfharm

mob-zombie:

Apparently not typing this is costing me sleep because I can’t stand people being this aggressively wrong on the internet and actively harming other people’s treatment because they’re a fuck wit who thinks their feelings are more true than medical research and other people’s personal experiences.

1. I’m going to upfront state if someone’s re-traumatising themselves using dark fiction they are DOING IT WRONG.

This is why the variety of warnings exist. This is why tags exist. We’ve created a space in which the viewing experience can be more informed than that of the average book or tv show explicitly to protect people and allow them to inform their viewing experience. Hell we even broke down rape and sexual assault tags to cover multiple varieties of these things to make sure people were as safe as they could get.

While objectively rape, non-con and dub-con are all rape tags, it’s not about softening that it’s rape, it’s about classifying the type of rape or grade of content so someone can inform their viewing experience. Can you senseless fucks please stop insisting it’s claiming these things aren’t rape. Two seconds of googling the tags would tell you up front they’re all rape, they’re just differentiating the variety of rape so people can inform their viewing experience and not be triggered.

For people who claim to be fighting for victims you sure fucking love actively removing things victims have to protect themselves.

2. Shipping to cope isn’t just exposure therapy. God there’s a million fucking ways people can use fiction in recovery and only like two of those are forms of exposure therapy.

The more common usages are:

‘using fiction to break down the events that happened to you into a manageable set up’ because post abuse for a lot of people the thoughts, memories and understanding of the experience are a big old noodly jumble that gets tangled up and eventually fucks with the ability to move past it. By reading or writing about the experience the feelings and thoughts can be de-tangled and ideally turned into something manageable to process.

‘creating a fictional version of events of how you wish things happened’ which is simply a variety of wish fulfilment that can make the experience in the past less painful or otherwise lessen the effects of the trauma sustained.

Seeing a character you love experience what you went through and come out the other side of it possibly recovering or working towards recovery can help enable seeing yourself eventually doing the same. if you can’t conceptualise recovery or surviving, it’s very difficult to move forward, sometimes seeing a character you love doing it is the push needed to think ‘I could do this.’

Alternatively, simply seeing a character experience the same thing can just make you feel less alone.

Sometimes fictionalising the experience helps separate the experience from you.

Sometimes sexualising the experience makes the event less threatening to reduce the fear of future victimisation or take control of existing experiences. This doesn’t diminish the seriousness of the original event, it’s simply how the person chooses to handle this.

If you’re unable to express what personally happened to you, sometimes putting those experiences on a character and vicariously experiencing sympathy through the audience or the story can help.

And there’s so many more, this is just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. The fact is everyone recovers differently and there’s as many ways of utilising fiction in the process as there are people who’ve experienced some form of sexual assault. As long as they’re not hurting themselves (re-traumatisation), tagging correctly (preventing others from accidentally being triggered), and listening to tags on the fics they read (again preventing re-traumatisation) AND thus not hurting anybody else, it’s legal, it’s safe and it isn’t your business.

3. Not everyone is coping with victimisation. Specifically generalised anxiety disorders and OCD which is also an anxiety disorder are two obvious examples of mental illness that can be treated through fiction.

The biggest thing with an anxiety disorder is that they love to jam random intrusive thoughts into your brain, and it really isn’t as simple as just ignoring them or pretending a douche bag is telling you to do something.

In an anxiety disorder, trying to ignore it will make it worse. Worrying about it will make it worse. Trying not to worry about it, guess what? makes it worse.

Sometimes the only way to ditch a thought is to address it directly.

People who’ve experienced intrusive thoughts about how if they don’t perform the rituals they’ll murder their family, therapists have them write out plans about killing their family to prove that despite what the brain is telling them, they aren’t going to do it. Therapists have handed people knives to prove they can be trusted not to murder people.

With the use of fiction an intrusive thought can be assigned to a characters actions. Fiction can be used as a way to think about an intrusive thought without becoming anxious you might turn the thought into action and by having directly addressed the intrusive thought you can get rid of it.

If you’re anxious about an event, you can write about a character experriencing the worst case scenario to reassure yourself that the thing your scared of is fictional. Or you could write about what you’re worried about going well as supporting evidence you’ll be fine.

Again these are just examples, there are many many more ways people manage mental and physical illness with fiction just as fiction can be used and mental health upkeep after a traumatic event.

And hell, even if you’re not mentally ill and haven’t experienced a traumatic event, if you want to write about a dark scenario, you should. Because not everyone going through these things can write or draw and rely on others to provide content to manage these things.

justanothersaltandburn:

rosemoonweaver:

@justanothersaltandburn replied to your post:
@intotheruins replied to your post:

…

If I can – I do that too. It helps me with the self doubt and intrusive thoughts. I have conversations with Bobby or Dean.

I think I’m going to try that. I’ve been dealing with a lot of self-doubt and confusion and general brain BS recently so that might be a good way of dealing with it for the time being.
It’s kinda cool that both of you do that and it helps.

And sometimes the tough love helps. Like – if I have Bobby in my head calling me an idiot in his gruff tone it’s less hurtful than me calling myself stupid – cause I know canonically he uses those sorts of insults as endearment – less you’re useless and more, try again this way.

That definitely makes sense. Every once in a while I need that kind of thing, too. Like, I just need someone (even if it’s myself) to tell me to knock it off and stop being so down on myself. It’s a problem I have a lot, unfortunately.

justanothersaltandburn:

rosemoonweaver:

@justanothersaltandburn

I get you, definitely. Sometimes it feels easier to give up
or just write the porn dribbles folks seem to want – but trust me it’s not.
Your writing is AMAZING. I love reading your stuff for RSCC – smut and non-smut
alike, and your other fics when I get a chance to sit down and read for
enjoyment.

You’ve got a storyteller’s mind and you’re good at what you
do – plot heavy and rare ships show it (the porn is good too of course – but
you REALLY shine when it comes to plot).

The feedback is small and sometimes it doesn’t feel worth
it, but you’re still creating worlds and relationships and all these awesome
things that didn’t exist before. And those 5 or 10 people that read it and went
wow – that’s cool – their lives are just a tiny bit richer than they were
before. And that’s because of YOU.

You flatter me. *blushes*

It’s just a pain in the ass at times. I love doing it, don’t get me wrong, and I don’t think I’d rather be doing anything else, it’s just kinda lonely at times. It’s like, I want to scream at people about the stuff I’ve done and what I’m working on and have people ask me about the worlds I’ve created but that doesn’t happen as much as I’d like. Maybe if I wrote more or faster or wrote more “popular” stuff but honestly, that doesn’t make me happy. I don’t like a whole lot of the popular tropes or AUs, I’m almost defiant in my love for certian characters and I almost refuse to write smut in longer fics unless I feel like it makes sense with the plot. It’s like, I’m pretty sure I know what kind of things would be successful in fanfic but I refuse to do them because it’s been done and it’s not me.

I guess I just want my ego stroked from time to time. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, thought.

But in the long run, yeah, if I’m making just one or two people happy or sad or whatever emotion I was going for by writing a rare ship or a poly fic or a smut-less pirate AU then it’s worth it. That’s the whole point of telling stories, after all. I made someone feel something and that’s knd of magical.

Reblogging this because I’m gonna end up leaving a mountain of replies again.

Fanfic writers get so much SHIT for what we do from “professional” authors but they really have no idea what it’s like. We’re right there on the front lines. We know within a week if our writing is a hit, a miss, or if it’s just kinda floating along the ‘less popular/unnoticed highway’ – that’s so damn hard but I think it’s a testament to our strength as writers and as people and as creators. We’re allowed to be pissed about it and vent about it, but then we stand up and keep going because that’s what we do.

We make worlds.

We take two completely unlikely characters that would never meet in canon and mash them together like Play-Doh and see what pretty color they make. We add in the colors of a new world or a unique trope and make it an even bigger rainbow.

And some people are just colorblind. They don’t see that awesome thing we made, this beautiful rainbow of light and dark and shades of blue that have never been seen before. And we can scream and wave our new mound of colors at them all we want and they won’t notice.

Then there’s a few people that see this new color and think it’s so damn awesome, and some of them, they go home and they play with that new color, see what they can do with it, and it shifts some more.

Rare ships may never be the most popular or the biggest kudos and notes bringer. It may take you three weeks to get one fic out because damnit, how are X and Y REALLY supposed to meet up? – But every single one of them is worth it, I promise you that.

Thank you. Honestly, this makes me feel a lot better about the whole situation. 🙂

You’re right. The creation of the thing is worth it if for no other reason. And if that inspires other people that’s great, too. It’s difficult, but something new exists because of us and that’s awesome.

samanddeaninpanties:

i-am-therefore-i-fight:

– sam hasn’t tried his hand at witchcraft in a really long time, but when the strawberry moon rolls around, he takes the opportunity to do a very small ritual for healing and peace. when the ritual is finished, he sits outside for a long time, eyes closed, faced turned upward towards the moon

– cas finds him this way, but he doesn’t want to interrupt, so he goes back inside to wait

– when sam comes inside at last – long after midnight – cas is waiting with a hot cup of green tea

– sam takes the tea back to his room and sets it on his bedside table. cas tucks him in and says a gentle goodnight

– “do you think the moon actually cares?” asks sam as he begins to drop off, eyelids drifting closed

– “i don’t know,” says cas, looking at sam’s soft face. he tells himself that he could be kinder. he will be kinder.

@rosemoonweaver

Abaddon/Rowena for the ship game :)

😀 Yay!

who’s the cuddler: No one really knows how they manage it, but they usually wind up snuggled together by the time they wake up. I think it’s safe to say they probably both have some part in it.
who makes the bed: Rowena, but magically of course.
who wakes up first: Abaddon. Rowena is very particular about her beauty sleep.
who has the weird taste in music: I’d have to say Abaddon, considering the music she prefers is older than Rowena (which, is actually young for a witch dangit!)
who is more protective: Abaddon. No one lays a finger on the Queen’s consort and lives to tell about it.
who sings in the shower: Rowena.
who cries during movies: It’s a little twisted, but Rowena will cry during a movie and it’s a rom-com. She’d much prefer that young lady no waste her time on whatever stud of the moment is on screen and devote him to bettering herself. (And that’s the reason Legally Blonde is one of her favorites.)
who spends the most while out shopping: Rowena. She’s got expensive tastes.
who kisses more roughly: Abaddon. She’s definitely a bit demanding but Rowena loves it.
who is more dominate: Abaddon. Again, Rowena loves it.
gets jealous the most: Abaddon. She’s got nothing to worry about, but it’s who she is.
one headcanon I have: In a universe in which Abaddon didn’t die, she and Rowena would have been the ultimate wicked power couple. No one stands in their way, and they do what they please when they please. There was an instant spark between the two of them, and together they are a force to be reckoned with.
nicknames: “My Queen” “My Little Witch”
my rating of the ship from 1-10: 10

Adamandriel? or if you don’t ship them maybe Benny?

Adamandriel

who’s the cuddler: Adam clings like plastic wrap. Samadriel could not be more thrilled with that, though.
who makes the bed: Adam. It’s a habit he picked up as a kid and he sticks to it. He doesn’t even think about it.
who wakes up first: Samandriel. He’s definitely an early bird.
who has the weird taste in music: They both listen to whatever’s popular on the radio so neither.
who is more protective: Samadriel. He’s like a baby tiger; adorable and soft but he’s got claws and could probably maul you.
who sings in the shower: Adam, but only Beyonce because it’s practically a law.
who cries during movies: Samadriel. And at everything. Do the heroes safe the day? He cries. The couple get together? Waterworks. Is there a cute dog? It’s blubbering. He’s very moved to strong emotion.
who spends the most while out shopping: Neither of them knows what a “budget” is.
who kisses more roughly: Adam. He always kisses like it’s his last.
who is more dominate: Adam. But he’s not super dominant, it’s just that Samadriel is very mellow.
gets jealous the most: Samadriel. One of the consequences of being moved to strong emotion is that he does overreact.
one headcanon I have: Being named after the angel of love, (or actually the angel of love depending on your preference for au or canon) Samadriel loves love. He is somewhat of a matchmaker, and when he notice that Adam was alone and miserable, he set out to try to find someone who would help him feel better about himself, someone who would lift him up and show him how wonderful he was, someone who would love him and who he could love in tunr. He just never expected that person to be himself.
nicknames: “sunshine” “morning glory” “love of my life” “light of my world” – They’re super sugary sweet.
my rating of the ship from 1-10: 8

(Also, did you mean Benny/Samandriel or Benny/Adam or Denny? I’ll willing to do any of the three but didn’t answer because I was not sure what you meant.)

idontneedasymbol:

This is a tangential response to @dorkilysoulless‘s post: https://idontneedasymbol.tumblr.com/post/160670608286/seven-sober-things-about-supernatural-12×21

which I’m separating out because it’s only responding to a single point:

And at the end of the day, I’m choosing to accept [Eileen’s] death narratively, because I understand the machinery that made it happen well enough to say okay, I get why the writers made this choice

Which I’ve seen several fans express, and I don’t get it. What narrative purpose did Eileen’s death serve besides a moment of shock in the opening, and a couple scenes of grief from Sam?

Charlie’s death – which I hate, and it burns me to defend it – but it serves a plot purpose; vengeance sends Dean further down the MoC’s dark path. It’s blatant fridging, but that motivation wouldn’t have worked if it hadn’t been someone close to them.

But if Eileen had been a previously unmentioned hunter acquaintance (like Mary’s friend), who died suspiciously and then the boys learned that he or she had been paranoid about having been bugged – how would the plot have progressed any differently at all? What would the Winchesters have done differently? They would’ve looked less sad, but how would that change the story?

Sam’s grief was nicely played, but is it going to have any impact after this? Will it change his character in any way? He’s mad at the BMOL, of course, but while he says he wants to punch something, he makes no decisions driven by that grief, instead acting as rationally as if Eileen were an innocent victim that they didn’t know personally. And anything he might have felt over Eileen is overwhelmed now by what the BMOL did to Mary.

Maybe I’m wrong and it will have an effect on Sam’s character; maybe he’ll be more likely to reach for the next opportunity for connection he gets, or less likely. But I think it unlikely; Eileen wasn’t really in the show enough yet to be that significant. I doubt we’ll get a mention of her again (maybe one reference next episode?). In the end, her only point in the overall story was to make the BMOL more detestable and make Sam look briefly sorrowful. And I have a hard time accepting that limited value was worth losing a character who provided unique representation, who was generally well-liked and offered further story opportunities (putting aside her developing relationship with Sam, she was the only other American MoL legacy the boys have met).