#Character Research

[fizzigigsimmer]

How Rich Are The Harringtons?

The true answer is nobody knows and however rich you want them to be lol. But I am a nuro-divergent sickly queen who finds research rabbit holes soothing, so I decided to look into it.

For all you writers out there and the just plain curious I have put together a brief report that examines the little we know about the Harrington's with historical data: TO THE PAGE

At the end of the day everyone is free to draw their own conclusions, but it is fascinating to think about. Doing this really opened my eyes to the ways that I view things from a modern lens. When I look at the Harrington's house for instance, I see wealth, but I see middle class wealth. I see WASPY "well off" people who are possibly spending outside their means to keep up with the Jones's who live in a frankly but ugly house. LOL Mrs. H, but that decor distresses me.

But by 1980s standards to afford any of that the Harrington's wouldn't be middle class. Frankly speaking they'd be rich. Not Bill gates rich or anything but rich enough to afford all of their high end pieces and luxury things, seemingly on a single parent income.

If you find this interesting too I'd love to discuss.

[lola-damas]

Witch character research

+ little walk cycle

[frederikpeeters]

[edricsresources]

tag drop: resource types part 1

[slotttralist]

[emrad001]

"Dyasonis" project

Chara-design for my new afro-fantasy project

[cinabre]

Kamal. Recherche de personnage faite en 2018, tout au début du projet.

[what-do-you-mean-theyre-evil]

Me: *Looking up scars on black skin for reference*

Also Me, a black girl with scars: ...Wait?

[poohnie]

This year at my school , I had the chance, with my classmates, to work on an animation project, in partnership with the association CARE France.

I really enjoyed this experience and, I am proud of what my group and I did, with this project.

Here is the character design I did for Fay, one of the protagonist of our short movie, called "Back to the Roots".

I am really thankful to my school, CARE and my group.

[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.

[humming-fly]

Every now and then I'm reminded Real People with Actual Jobs use tumblr and I've always been legitimately curious what all you weird adults are up to when you're not on this site and with tumblr's New Poll Feature I can finally get an answer! (or the closest approximation of an answer possible with only 10 available options h a)

[trashcanplant]

I LOVE doing character research SO MUCH! I love learning about specific and niche things, other cultures, languages (even if it is strictly through Google translate; I’m still human after all) and then finding out that BEFORE I started researching I already had an almost perfect place! Example:

In my story, every star is alive and has the opportunity to become a planet. The “planet” is really only a mantle and works a lot like a moniker. So over a year ago when I was first making the Sun character, I made him older and more red. When I updated the character, I made turned him into Sunny. I did end up feeling bad, so I turned Mr. Sun into the old mantle of “Sun”. He’s now Antares, a red supergiant that’s 15.8 MILLION years old, about 51 times the size of the sun, and his interior core is heating up because haha old man! BUT BUT BUT!!!

Whatever was I going to do with Sunny? Well, they were Lacaille 8760 before (still technically is, though nobody calls him that out of respect) a RED DWARF FLARE STAR!! This means that they can heat up REALLY HOT for a short amount of time! In story, this shows in their near-death experience when they heat up to protect Earnest then get rained on and almost die. LIKE!!!

AND AND AND AND OMG I had added an aspect to the world, the Glass Desert, because of a song I liked (also TAZ reference). Then that got me thinkin, HOW did this happen? BOOM! Antares, 2nd year of being Mr. Sun, he’s an angry guy (at this point he wasn’t a red supergiant, but a brown one ((meaning he’s a flare star!!))) so he just HEATS UP CRAZY STYLE and turns an ENTIRE desert into glass! Like, it’s clear all the way down to the deep purple rock that makes up the crust! It’s INSANE! Anyway all of this way about a CHARACTER WHOS ONLY MENTIONED.

Sunny is a side character, and I went SO in-depth that it was INSANE, and ANTARES?? Dude, he’s only mentioned a few times in the first half of Chapter 8. I plan to give him a little come back, but like. Anyway, all this to say is that I’m autistic.

[lola-damas]

New outfits I made for Emmie ❤️✨

[frederikpeeters]

[susantbraithwaite]

Writing and Blooming: A Sneak Peek into Researching My Next Heroine

For many, many, many months, I’ve been working on the edits for Running the Asset. Much of the work I’ve been doing lately involves research, confirming facts, and location scouting. It’s been a fun but time-consuming part of the job. Not only has it been necessary for the story’s verisimilitude, but it’s also helped me connect with the characters on a far deeper level. It’s a process I want to…

[slotttralist]