#It's VERY specific

[nikoisme]

Okay so I feel like that if my men Odysseus and Hector ever interacted (in a not-enemy way) they would have the energy of "two dads in the tool section of a shop". One would see the other checking out a drill and he would be like "hey that's actually pretty bad, not a good investment man". Then they would spend a solid 30 minutes talking about the different tools they use. They would bond. Immediate bros. And then they leave and like never interact again

[sealinredshoes]

me, watching the characters of a book struggling against their fate, but I know they are all already doomed by the narrative

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[spoofymcgee]

just got smacked upside the head by a new fic idea but it's two hours to shabbat and i have things to do

[eonars]

Last summer I was on a very expedited acid come up at a music festival and my entirely unaware mother thousands of miles away was at costco and texted me incredulous at how they already had halloween stuff out for sale in the summer but all I saw was a message preview of a giant 10 foot tall skeleton with glowing eyes and "can u believe it??"

[bereft-of-frogs]

There’s that post that’s like ‘everyone should get into a tiny niche fandom at least once’ fully agree, that was really fun -- but I would like to add that everyone should get into a fandom where their opinions run counter to major fanon because it really teaches you about sticking to your guns and trusting your interpretation of the text without having to rely on peer validation

because WHAT are people talking about sometimes

[nouverx]

"I want to eat you" is their love language and you can't change my mind

[isjasz]

[mob killing noises] BAM!!!!1111!!

[tearlessrain]

please help me- i used to be pretty smart but i’m having so much trouble grasping the concept of diegetic vs non-diegetic bdsm!

gfkjldghfd okay first of all I'm sorry for the confusion, if you're not finding anything on the phrase it's because I made it up and absolutely nobody but me ever uses it, but I haven't found a better way to express what I'm trying to say so I keep using it. but now you've given me an excuse to ramble on about some shit that is only relevant to me and my deeply inefficient way of talking and by god I'm going to take it.

SO. the way diegetic and non-diegetic are normally used is to talk about music and sound design in movies/tv shows. in case you aren't familiar with that concept, here's a rundown:

diegetic sound is sound that happens within the world of the movie/show and can be acknowledged by the characters, like a song playing on the stereo during a driving scene, or sung on stage in Phantom of the Opera. it's also most other sounds that happen in a movie, like the sounds of traffic in a city scene, or a thunderclap, or a marching band passing by. or one of the three stock horse sounds they use in every movie with a horse in it even though horses don't really vocalize much in real life, but that's beside the point, the horse is supposed to be actually making that noise within the movie's world and the characters can hear it whinnying.

non-diegetic sound is any sound that doesn't exist in the world of the movie/show and can't be perceived by the characters. this includes things like laugh tracks and most soundtrack music. when Duel of Fates plays in Star Wars during the lightsaber fight for dramatic effect, that's non-diegetic. it exists to the audience, but the characters don't know their fight is being backed by sick ass music and, sadly, can't hear it.

the lines can get blurry between the two, you've probably seen the film trope where the clearly non-diegetic music in the title sequence fades out to the same music, now diegetic and playing from the character's car stereo. and then there are things like Phantom of the Opera as mentioned above, where the soundtrack is also part of the plot, but Phantom of the Opera does also have segments of non-diegetic music: the Phantom probably does not have an entire orchestra and some guy with an electric guitar hiding down in his sewer just waiting for someone to break into song, but both of those show up in the songs they sing down there.

now, on to how I apply this to bdsm in fiction.

if I'm referring to diegetic bdsm what I mean is that the bdsm is acknowledged for what it is in-world. the characters themselves are roleplaying whatever scenarios their scenes involve and are operating with knowledge of real life rules/safety practices. if there's cnc depicted, it will be apparent at some point, usually right away, that both characters actually are fully consenting and it's all just a planned scene, and you'll often see on-screen negotiation and aftercare, and elements of the story may involve the kink community wherever the characters are. Love and Leashes is a great example of this, 50 Shades and Bonding are terrible examples of this, but they all feature characters that know they're doing bdsm and are intentional about it.

if I'm talking about non-diegetic bdsm, I'm referring to a story that portrays certain kinks without the direct acknowledgement that the characters are doing bdsm. this would be something like Captive Prince, or Phantom of the Opera again, or the vast majority of bodice ripper type stories where an innocent woman is kidnapped by a pirate king or something and totally doesn't want to be ravished but then it turns out he's so cool and sexy and good at ravishing that she decides she's into it and becomes his pirate consort or whatever it is that happens at the end of those books. the characters don't know they're playing out a cnc or D/s fantasy, and in-universe it's often straight up noncon or dubcon rather than cnc at all. the thing about entirely non-diegetic bdsm is that it's almost always Problematic™ in some way if you're not willing to meet the story where it's at, but as long as you're not judging it by the standards of diegetic bdsm, it's just providing the reader the same thing that a partner in a scene would: the illusion of whatever risk or taboo floats your boat, sometimes to extremes that can't be replicated in real life due to safety, practicality, physics, the law, vampires not being real, etc. it's consensual by default because it's already pretend; the characters are vehicles for the story and not actually people who can be hurt, and the reader chose to pick up the book and is aware that nothing in it is real, so it's all good.

this difference is where people tend to get hung up in the discourse, from what I've observed. which is why I started using this phrasing, because I think it's very crucial to be able to differentiate which one you're talking about if you try to have a conversation with someone about the portrayal of bdsm in media. it would also, frankly, be useful for tagging, because sometimes when you're in the mood for non-diegetic bodice ripper shit you'd call the police over in real life, it can get really annoying to read paragraphs of negotiation and check-ins that break the illusion of the scene and so on, and the opposite can be jarring too.

it's very possible to blur these together the same way Phantom of the Opera blurs its diegetic and non-diegetic music as well. this leaves you even more open to being misunderstood by people reading in bad faith, but it can also be really fun to play with. @not-poignant writes fantastic fanfic, novels, and original serials on ao3 that pull this off really well, if you're okay with some dark shit in your fiction I would highly recommend their work. some of it does get really fucking dark in places though, just like. be advised. read the tags and all that.

but yeah, spontaneous writer plug aside, that's what I mean.

[bamsara]

Small reminder that you should really download your favorite fics off of AO3. We are seeing mass censorships well as the chance that anything, such as another severe DDoS attack can shut down the site making works unaccessible and possibly lost for good.

If you do not know how to download fics, it is a simple 2-button click. I've written a tutorial here.

You think your stuff is safe until it's suddenly not, and then often times it's too late.

This post starts with AO3, (because it seems to be the common denominator across all users on this website /joking) but I recommend extending preservation efforts to anything online if you can manage to download it.

I'm not saying panic and start buying tons of storage devices to hold immense amounts of stuff. A cheap usb can hold plenty of things. You don't have to stop using services still available if it's more convenient to read books on your phone than to fill your backpack with 7 of them.

But you should still get (either buying or creating) physical versions because nothing is guarantee that it will remain forever. From shows being pulled from streaming services, to banned books, to losing access to digital copies of media because the service doesn't support it anymore, the account is lost, or the company goes under. This goes for messaging platforms as well. Your role-plays with your friends on discord can be lost forever, your photos can too.

This doesn't even include media most vulnerable to censorship and how quickly it can be removed, and quietly.

You think it will not happen to you, it will. Do not wait for unforeseen circumstances. Go back up and preserve what you can, your future self will be happy that you did.

[paper-mario-wiki]

hey! you shouldnt make jokes calling cis people eggs, especially when they are real living breathing human beings with intelligent thought and critical thinking. if you do, you're weird and i think you should consider the effect your words more often, because as someone who was a very public facing cis person who had a lot of Egg jokes made about me before transitioning, it still makes me fucking sick to think about. it fucked me up so bad that i refused to transition until i quit my job and wasnt under the eyes of people making bets on my psychology. how dare you fucking speak down to me regarding my own identity. how dare you fucking claim to know me better than i know myself.

it is not the privilege of trans people to have their stated gender identity believed, nor is it a sin of cis people to acknowledge their option to transition and still remain cis. make egg jokes about fictional characters, fine. but accusing a stranger of not being the gender they claim to be is not something you get to reclaim when you're trans.

[spacedace]

What is it about laying on the floor when you're overwhelmed that makes everything feel so much better?

[nyctosaurid]

don bluth films occupy a weird space because he's both inarguably an auteur who directs very strange, earnest, often "ugly" films but also a guy who near exclusively made movies for 8 year olds in the home video era. so basically everything he's ever done is a grimy, dreamy rumination on death and spirituality and has a direct to video sequel called something like secret of nimh 2: mrs. brisby's holiday adventure

[black-quadrant]

sometimes all you need is one passionate person who goes berserk for your work to keep you creating

[beyhr]

you never know!