#both their expressions track

[catenary-chad]

Interesting ideas for a non-rep Electra in a slightly earlier setting (50s-70s): The New Haven EP-5

Popular as a toy for its fabulous livery and new and innovative in the 1950s, but infamous for catching fire and not being very reliable (possible due to poor maintenance). They also fit AC/DC well because they were an earlier example of an electric loco that could change AC power to DC for its motors (and could run off both overhead AC power or third rail DC, which was common in the region). They actually had a fairly sad irl story, they’re a very visible symbol of the failure of the New Haven, having limited use due to de-electrification and neglect, and a short lifespan by electric standards (20ish years but much of it in storage). The New Haven is one of the more extreme examples of what factors led to de-electrification and the problems US railroads had at the time in general (short sighted business decisions, highway built parallel to their mainline, antiquated regulations making passenger rail a money pit, massively deferred maintenance). So there’s a lot of darker character potential there despite having a number of the same surface-level traits as replica presents. Bright and seemingly futuristic, even had a brief cameo in a major movie (The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit), but troubled and a symbol of how electric traction was anything but inevitable and is actually very vulnerable to political/economic threats.

As a funny aside, the Lionel model had actual functioning pantographs if you were crazy enough to make a tiny catenary system for it. A lot of models also had horn sounds despite the actual engines infamously having air whistles!

[angelsdean]

ruthlessly deleting old 2021/2022 posts (not by me) from my dean studies tag like *click* un-incorporating that from my beliefs system! also the way SO many posts have me like ok uh-huh good aaand then say one completely wrong thing that loses me. it's so many posts.

[sysig]

Incomplete exchange (Patreon)

[adhdo5]

To be so honest I think Lan Wangji is the character the donghua fumbles the hardest

[todayisafridaynight]

What do you think Mine’s reaction to Masato / Aoki be like?

tbh they'd probably be. amicable. at the very least.

[imflyingfish]

Its weird because i dont actually have much of a desire to move to france or use french reguarly in my life but at this point ive deadicated over a year to learning it so i might as well keep going and finish

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

[sculpturesofanythinggoes]

anyway. the ticket for the last show of the car tour has been secured 🤧

[syncope-syndrome]

Not being into pet/torture whump is my Atlas's boulder.

[sysig]

This is a very serious story about a man named Stanley (Patreon)

[allisonreader]

Kind of random but the thought has just struck me again, because I have thought this or at least have known this on some level for many years, that I would write even if it never gets shared or even finished.

Like for years I wrote different things without sharing or necessarily even finishing most of what I started. And honestly, even though I'd love to write something publishable, I would survive easily by just sharing stuff online.

[spagheddiesquash]

oughhhggg. the desire to start doing things that will likely improve my quality of life versus the fear that ill look stupid for trying and people will think less of me

[ryttu3k]

Video of Gale in pain due to the orb, text versions and other bits and pieces including dev notes.

Just remembered how, when I was first levelling up Gale, I thought, 'huh, he's got fairly decent Consitution for a wizard. Useful for gameplay purposes, of course, but I wonder if there's a narrative explanation?'

And not an hour or two of play later, learned that the orb - if left untreated too long - causes him constant pain, muscle spasms and disorientation. Gale and Tara did not immediately figure out how to treat his condition, which meant that he likely spent weeks or months in that state - and of course, whenever the orb acts up, he goes through it again. He probably endures it constantly through the end of act 1, after his treatment stops working.

Constitution, of course, is that the stat that represents ability to focus while being hurt. Endurance even after physical distress. Pain tolerance.

Yeah. I think there's a narrative explanation.

[revelingrexan]

my "drawing Lucifer with Charlie's expressions" pictures unexpectedly popped off on Twitter too, so i got inspired to start drawing smth i've wanted to for a while:

a redraw of this cool and silly performer who often reminds me of Lucifer! :)

https://www.tiktok.com/@broken_juggler/video/7393019284047351071

(Lucifer is sleep deprived and not doing well)

[foxcassius]

okay i wrote a really good confession scene for my polyam hm fic. now let me just write the beginning middle and buildup for it. surely nothing will happen that will render my two and a half thousand words of high intensity character establishment unuseable.

[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.