thegardenandthegrave

[thegardenandthegrave]

if people know a showrunner by name then u just know they were committing war crimes throughout their shows

[thegardenandthegrave]

I think this is a concept worthy of a dissertation and absolutely needs to become mainstream. It's honestly rewiring the way I see non-diegetic bdsm novels as we speak. I think you might be single handedly curing my writers block.

ITS CONSENSUAL BY DEFAULT BECAUSE ITS PRETEND.

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.

[thegardenandthegrave]

grabs your hand. you've had enough plot and exposition and character development lately im taking you to the beach episode

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rb to relieve the back pain of the person u reblogged this from

[thegardenandthegrave]

i hate when i, a completely healthy person (very chronically ill), get sick (flare up) for no reason at all (i exerted myself way past my limit just cuz i didn’t wanna be “annoying”)

[thegardenandthegrave]

I need Miriam Webster to specifically file Dude under non-gendered term of address because I've been having a years long argument with my SO about it.

Every time I call my dog (f) a little dude he corrects me that she's not a dude at all. And the only dictionary we can agree is correct enough to make a determination is Miriam Webster.

I'm far more steamed about this than he is, but he won't stop correcting me regardless. :(

"Girl" is completely removed from the concept of Being Female in my mind at this point it's barely even connected to femininity girl is about the vibe. Girl is a mindset

[thegardenandthegrave]

people love to complain about sex scenes in tv shows and violence in movies when the real danger is scenes that make you feel second hand embarrassment.

[thegardenandthegrave]

ATTENTION WRITERS!!!

[thegardenandthegrave]

Just spent a good five hours deep diving reddit and Google maps to research every coffee shop and bar I could conceivably reach in the Portland metro area that would qualify as cozy and comfortable.

And all I have to say is:

[thegardenandthegrave]

This is the thing about chronic illness that I keep trying to wrap my head around; it's chronic.

The horrors persist.

The horrors will continue to persist.

I've run out of medical interventions, I've run out of options. And at the same time I know I can't keep running away from my life. It's an excuse, and a valid one at that, but I'm tired of it derailing my life. But I have no choice.

As this disease perseveres in my body, I will have to persevere with my life in spite of it.

I am strong and resilient, and this is a good thing, but I wish I could be soft too. A soft version of me died many years ago. Years before the inflammation and pain took over my body. I wonder plenty about causation and correlation but I don't believe it's really of any consolidation now. Thinking about it isn't helpful.

I am grateful my condition is periodic. At least I get breaks. Others aren't so lucky with their medical misfortunes.

Although I generally endeavour to keep a zen mindset, a little 'woe is me' is good for the soul, I think. It can be cathartic. I'm allowed to shout out to the universe and to the void that this sucks. Because it does. It fucking sucks.

[thegardenandthegrave]

[thegardenandthegrave]

This week on Dropout: on Monday, an all-new Game Changer with Becca Scott, Rekha Shankar, and Erika Ishii; on Tuesday, an all-new Um, Actually with Dani Fernandez, Elyse Willems, and Danielle Radford; on Wednesday, a VERY BIG episode of Dimension 20: Fantasy High Junior Year; on Thursday, a VERY CHAOTIC Adventuring Party and episode 2 of Smartypants with presenters Jess Ross, Jacob Wysocki, and Katie Marovitch; and on Friday, go behind-the-scenes on Very Important People: Last Looks!

Also, we'll have a trailer for a new series called Dropout Presents that will go up on Wednesday at 1:30pm ET / 10:30am PT, so stay tuned for that!

[thegardenandthegrave]

Here is a free pdf of the players handbook

Here is a free pdf of xanathars guide to everything

Here is a free pdf to monsters manual

Here is a free pdf to tashas cauldron of everything

Here is a free pdf to dungeon master’s guide

Here is a free pdf to volo’s guide to monsters

Here is a free pdf of mordenkainen’s tomb of foes

For all your dnd purposes

[thegardenandthegrave]

Its Ehlers Danlos Syndrome awarness month and I would like to be LESS aware, please and thank you.

[thegardenandthegrave]

me: I'm done grieving, I already accepted my illness and all it brings with it, it's totally ok

also me on a random tuesday: my life is never going back to what it was, I'm never going to be able to do the things I loved the most the same, it's over and I gotta learn to live with that but it's kinda impossible because I'm so young and I had so many dreams and so many things I wanted to do that I can't anymore, at least not without all this pain and suffering

[thegardenandthegrave]

Needed this today, I think.

I've seen this before, but it's been years and it just came across my Twitter in its dying days. The words are from a favorite author of mine, Maggie Stiefvater, and they are the words I most need to hear when it comes to dealing with chronic pain and illness. I didn't need this the first time I saw it, six years ago. I need it now. Maybe you do, too.

[thegardenandthegrave]

Due to poor reading comprehension I selected no when I meant yes.