#i have original characters

[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

[canisalbus]

Trying to figure out modern Ludovica.

[beebeedibapbeediboop]

Observing

[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.

[nitw]

i've been waiting for gravity falls to become relevant again so i could share one of my favorite underrated bits from the entire show. like it's only episode 2 but this whole segment just makes me lose my shit. i think jason ritter's exasperated line delivery is what makes it

[strategypillar]

Teen hood

Another bundle of ocs drawings without context, but now medieval edition :)

[peevishpants]

i ask you this: how would YOU wear your freshly caught fish hat

[ruporas]

trigunned the hades or hadesed the trigun (id in alt)

[skellagirl]

so I played through Origins again and there's this middle-aged man 🫣

Amrynn the Hero of Ferelden will smooch him, so help me God

why did they do him so fucking dirty in Trespasser anyway lol 😭 I'm half convinced he was originally meant to be an entirely different character and then last minute they were like, 'hey let's make him Teagan instead' but didn't change anything about his design. But it IS really funny when your Inquisitor rides up to the exalted council and looks up at him and he's just mean mugging the FUCK out of you

[lo-andbehold]

A callout post (it’s me I’m calling myself out)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

You keep telling yourself that Namari.

[k1d1c4rus]

thinking about how armand was turned bc he was dying from being stabbed by a scorned grown man who was in love with him. he nearly died from rejecting unwanted advances. its such a key explicit detail of his origin that teaches him yet again that what he wants is utterly unimportant and even deadly in the face of survival. everything about his character is informed by the fact that he adapts entirely to the situation he is forced into because that's the only way he can survive. he adopts the satanic doctrine for 200 years not because he believes in it but because he knows that is the only way he'll survive and as soon as lestat arrives he knows he can abandon it. for half a millenium he believes he can't get what he wants and also survive, he has to choose one or the other. God.

[canisalbus]

*carefully picks you up and peeks into your conch snail shell*

Ehm... Sorry to bother, but... Could we, maybe, possibly... see Vasco's wife and her lover pictured by your hand? Sorry again, thank you for listening. Take care.

*delicately lays you back into the water to prevent any stress or dehydration*

Unfortunately I don't have her lover figured out yet, but I think Ludovica looks something like this:

[beebeedibapbeediboop]

Chained

[sophie-andthestars]

ok i had enough

i am not going to be normal about my ocs anymore. i am going to commit to being feral about them. i will draw them in every universe i love and in every cute outfit i find on pinterest. i will tell about them ANYONE who listens and if they DONT i’ll make ‘em. i will build a shrine to worship my ocs and if nobody loves them as much as i am, i’d be their single follower until the end of my days and the end of the world itself!

idk what insta made to make me THIS sanitized, like i go on there and be like “yeah here’s my original character who i love very normally haha i’m a serious one” FUCK YOU MY INSTA PERSONA YOU ADHERE TO THE NORMIES THAT FOLLOW YOU TOO MUCH

LET THEM KNOW YOU HAVE THE POWER OF IMAGINATION

LET THEM SEE THE POWER ONE WITG IMAGINATION HAD WHEN THEY HAVE A SINGLE PENCIL

AND TO ANYONE WHO SEES THIS

GO OFF MY CHILD

STAN THE SHIT OUT OF YOUR OC

BE YOUR OWN HYPE PERSON

[drenched-in-sunlight]

elden ring OCs.

Raimes and Mirai. they hail from one of the main houses that made up Erdtree’s upper echelons.