#because i loved it so much

[underwaterbanshee]

There is this moment in EXU Calamity that perfectly encapsulates and underpins Patia and Laerryn’s relationship in such a smart way. It’s when we see Laerryn stumble to explain her life’s work to Loquacious because she knows she has to dumb it down for him and she obviously doesn’t have to slow down for Patia.

In fact, Laerryn never has to slow down for Patia, but Patia is constantly used to translating Laerryn’s mind and work for people incapable of keeping up with her.

Patia does it for Loquacious, using the short hand of nearly half a dozen conversations the audience isn’t privy to, but it is so easily clear that they’ve had off screen, because Laerryn and Patia keep at pace with each other in every academic conversation about the gods, magic, and where the astral lay wright can take them.

And what is a strength in every other situation--Laerryn’s sped and ability to just make logical leaps over blocks that stumble her peers, while Patia slows everything down so she can break it down into finite discrete pieces--nearly destroys their beloved Avalir.

Patia slows the forest to know The Tree while Laerryn burns it as a thief stealing what’s hers.

Of course brilliant people who constantly ruminate on the nature of magic, who know its insides and outsides, who intend to die doing great magic whether or not their city is exploding, were always going to be an impediment to the Betrayers.

I bring this up now, not only because I’m stuck on the way Laerryn and Patia talked about divinity and the gods (which is a whole separate gushing of its own that I want to just beat Ludinus to death with because let’s talk about how not to accept the premise of what godhood means you piece of shit)--

But because Deanna and F.R.I.D.A. have a very similar shorthand. Definitely excellent work put in by their players.

Obviously, they are not Patia and Laerryn, who watched one of their own become a god, but they clearly have had conversation after conversation about this topic.

And they’re trying to dumb it down for strangers.

Which is wild. Especially in this context, which these strangers.

And we haven’t even gotten to the discussion where everything everyone knows for sure is laid out and someone asks, very politely, Where’s the fucking Tree holding this all up?

[thesungod]

you talk about toa but nico was also ooc in toa though?

at least toa had apollo’s character arc and sex jokes. what did tsats have to redeem ooc Nico?

but in all seriousness anon, i don’t really agree. i think ToA did well at complementing Nico’s fucked up-ness and Nico’s healing and happiness. You could sense that he was in a better place in THO than in BoO, and you could sense he was in an ever better place (hadn’t he been tortured by Bob’s nightmares) in TON than in THO. He was more accepting of Will’s physical affection, wasn’t afraid to call him his boyfriend anymore etc. But you could still see he was going through it and had a lot of skeletons (lol) in his closet.

When people say that Nico in tsats isn’t ooc, “just happier”, i find myself disagreeing because i thought nico was somewhat happy in ToA too but I personally found it more believable. Also they are acting like Nico hasn’t already spent an entire year healing already😭 We’ve seen a Nico who’s getting better. And we liked him!

The reason why tsats felt ooc had nothing to do with that and all to do with a giant He Would Not Say That energy.

I don’t doubt a couple of jokes were out of place in ToA too (when he started calling people by last name. it’s fanon thing but he doesn’t. do that.) but i can glide past it because I love ToA and like Nico in ToA.

You’re entitled to your opinion and if you hate it with the passion of a burning sun good for you!! I’m a stan account tho😭

[greyhavensking]

EVERYONE SHOULD SEE THIS MOVIE

[anadorablekiwi]

I love American cheese

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The math just adds up!

[notherpuppet]

First Meeting

[phantom-of-the-501st]

Remember that this is not the proof that they love each other

That was a last-ditch attempt from Crowley to get Aziraphale to stay

This is the proof that they love each other

Their love wasn't just made real because they kissed

It always existed

[brainrotcharacters]

When irl pisses me off, I rewatch the Honda Odyssey scene to relax

[fandolion]

Incredible artist Julia Stoess makes these giant 100:1 insect models, I have never seen something more beautiful !

Definition of mastering your craft, they are PERFECT

[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.

[hansoeii]

the best person I know.

[reasonsforhope]

Sometimes you just have one of those moments where the progress we've made as a culture get thrown into stark relief. You look at something and go "Holy shit, that would never have happened when I was a kid."

Today, I had one of those moments when I realized that the teenage boys I'm working with are just. genuinely, openly enthusiastic about going to Build-a-Bear for their outing.

These are sixteen and seventeen year old boys! They just had a whole conversation about what to name their "cute", mostly new squishmallows! They're genuinely excited that they're going to Build-a-Bear this weekend and asking other kids to pick up specific accessories for them!!

Holy shit, that never would've happened when I was 16. None of the boys would have dared to be visibly interested - and neither would most of the girls! There would have been a million gay jokes and "Haha, you're a girl" jokes and "What are you, a baby?" jokes. Teenagers weren't even supposed to care about anything back then!

Less than 15 years later, and I'm watching three 17 year old boys treat all that as not even worthy of comment.

So let's call that a reason for hope. Even when the kids aren't alright, in some ways apparently they are alright. Go Gen Z, honestly. It's so lovely to watch you guys just openly doing and saying stuff that, when I was a teen, would've been a social death sentence.

[maria-ruta]

"what if chilchuck was a butch?" we thought

and Ryoko said - "say no more!" - and made Meijack, can you believe it???

anyway I'm surprised nobody's done it before, you can have it!

original panels under read more

p.s. - she just doodled chilchuck genderbend once and couldnt let go of the design and BAM Meijack was born lol its so funnt tbh. but fucking valid

[heph]

A Moment in Time - Dearly Missed

[nipuni]

Gallifrey

A speedpaint video of this will be available at my Patreon on march 1st! 😊

[maplebars]

my dear maple