#Non-Diegetic Music

[inspectorspacetimerevisited]

It’s a good thing that the soundtrack to ‘Scoundrel’ was period appropriate,

rather than having modern-day pop songs played in a slightly old-fashioned manner, like a certain period drama that the episode takes its cues from.

[stickybitch]

Having a panic attack in a convenience store pushing my back against the cool glass of the drinks fridge door screaming “someone play my non-diegetic music! Someone put on some non-diegetic music” the music plays, none of us hear it. And the credits roll.

[dandelionjack]

saw this on the forbidden app could not resist reposting because it’s true. “the one who waits is almost here” is lazy LAZY writing. stop dangling lore in front of our faces… make it SUBTLE. show not tell…

did russell go to the chibnall school of bad screenwriting before his return because these episodes do genuinely feel like they’ve been created by a different person entirely than the emotionally intelligent, thoughtful showrunner who gave us the first four series

[kiralamouse]

"I thought that was non-diegetic!" is now my VERY FAVORITE leaning-on-the-fourth-wall line ever.

[lilacerull0]

if rose fans can keep going about the doctor's devotion to rose persisting throughout multiple regenerations i can blabber about amy being his truest love although i don't entirely believe that but. he did say fish fingers and custard was his favourite still.

[nov5aftermath]

The devil's chord is so stupid and meta in the best way

[novustrad]

Started watching Ncuti Gatwa's Dr Who and so far it is so good

I missed a lot since I stopped watching part way through Matt Smith's run, and I've only just finished The Devil's Chord, but are there a lot more 4th wall and reality breaks this time around?

[nami-moittli]

Twst AU idea:

Y’know how Disney movies are like, musical movies? Yeah, in this AU the boys will randomly burst out into song at random times, and only Yuu doesn’t know the words, or choreography or any of that, so they’re just kinda left standing there like, “why are you all dancing? Why are you all singing?! HOW DO YOU ALL KNOW THE WORDS AND MOVES?! WHEN DID YOU REHEARSE?!?!”

And to make it even better, all of the songs are non-diegetic, so Yuu’ll be like, “so, uh, why did you randomly start singing and stuff?”

And then like, Ace, will be like, “wtf are you even talking about?”

So Yuu dies a bit inside every time everyone starts doing a musical number, and they can’t say anything lest they be called insane or something (they definitely start to think they are)

And once, Yuu tries to go along with the musical world they’ve found themselves in, so they try and start up a song, only for them to immediately realize that they do not have the power to start up a number, and everyone around them is just like, “why tf are you singing rn?”

[chevvrotain]

that scene on the balcony with do-hee just staring after she got proposed to times two electric boogaloo would be so funny without the background music

[chaoxfix]

if the sonic series is diegetic to sonic itself (the games exist in sonics world), are they intentionally low quality? are they put out by the eggman empire to discredit sonic's efforts?

[twodoorsnotone]

i NEED a bootleg of the 2023 guys and dolls. pls someone must have one it has marisha wallace in it people love her. i am going to go see it anyway at some point but I want to see if it'd work for my dissertation before i commit 🥺

[stoportotouch]

entertaining Notions about 1776

[thismoleculeisacomedian]

Two things I really, really, really wish happened in TMMM: (1) Midge telling Lenny that she'd seen him on stage before they actually met, and (2) that "That's No Way to Say Goodbye" and/or "Chelsea Hotel" had been in the soundtrack.

(Even though those songs wouldn't have been quite contemporary to the show. Personally I have no issue with using noncontemporary music* in a period drama, as long as it thematically fits.)

[nelson-riddle-me-this]

This is on my Columbo s7 playlist, representing the overwhelming carousel music towards the end of "Make Me A Perfect Murder". As much as I don't like making references that listeners might not get, I do have such a thing for using instrumental recordings of songs that if you recognize the song/know the lyrics you know are relevant. I love the trope of 'the source music* knows what you did', it appears a lot in my playlists.

[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.

[littlelambii]

every time I watch archer I honestly think more and more that the writers are geniuses of the English language

from the scene diaglue running into the next scene's context to the subtle fourth wall breaking

I feel like more people should be talking about this show