Knockity🕴️knock💥
Would u be okay w a piece for bartender kk showing off his flashy bartending stuff to Sweet (starstruck) and Cap (enjoying the show) ?
✖️⭕✖️⭕
☕ n 🌌
Yeah, yeah!!!
Title: Spotlight
Words: 608
Look at me.
He tossed the shaker in the air and turned, catching it behind his back.
Look. Look.
The speaker's eyes were on him alone. He could do anything with that attention. It was so natural to overindulge in their gaze. When they looked at him it felt like a spotlight was shining on him. He loved that spotlight. He loved seeing that spotlight flicker with excitement at his movements.
He could do anything.
Sweet believed that, themself. Cakes' movements were so fluid, so precise. Skilled, obvious years of talent showed through in each quick trick. They didn't see the glances the bartender made at them, making sure they were still watching. Too starstruck to do anything but watch the shaker jump through the air. It was amazing how Cakes could turn a solid object into water. It was like watching a tasque jump through a hoop. Cakes seemed to know where the shaker was moving just as one might know how to move a limb.
Cakes popped the top open and poured the contents into Sweet's glass. He knew what was coming next, he waited for it.
"Woah..." Sweet beamed, "that was so cool!"
Their praise was a nightly high.
"Hmm," Cakes hummed as it showered in admiration. It was not usually one to show off quite like that. It took time away from paying customers. But for Sweet, he could afford it.
"Let me know if you need it topped off~" It said with a wink.
Meanwhile, on the far end of the busy building, a set of eyes watched the duo. Cap'n wasn't as good with a shaker as Cakes was, but he could balance a tray of glasses like he'd been born to do it.
"Excuse me?"
He straightened, blinking. "Oh, sorry, sorry," he smiled at the table. "Your orders?"
He didn't use to get so distracted. Even when it was just him and Cakes. Yet, now he seemed to be getting side-tracked each time he went up front. He lingered by the counter longer than he needed to. He'd skate up to Sweet or Cakes' side and strike up conversations until one of them reminded him that he did, indeed, have a job to do. Cap'n's body ran on instinct when he was at work. Diligent, if not a tad cocky, but he always got his job done.
"I'll be right back with your drinks," he smiled politely. Immediately he skated back to the counter, purposefully pretending to not see a customer's hand waving him down.
"Sweet, Cakes," he slowed to a leisurely roll. He placed his head in his hand as he leaned against the counter. "Miss me?" he winked.
Cakes smiled, his shoulders moving up and down slightly. "Of course, we missed you~"
"Just like your tables," Sweet teased.
Cap'n rolled his eyes. One little table wouldn't get him fired. "I'm dropping off an order, thank you. I'll get them on my way back." He handed Cakes a slip of paper, "two of the house specials and three Cyber Call-Outs."
"Wow~!" Cakes smiled, "they really want to party, don't they?"
"It's not called a Call-Out for nothing."
Cap'n strummed his fingers against the counter as Cakes prepared to make the drinks. He couldn't resist glancing at the smallest of the three. Sweet not-so-subtly watched Cakes over the brim of their cup. He could see their pupil grow as he stared in wonder.
Look at me.
He was. He looked at them every chance he got.
Look. Look.
His smile softened. His eyelids fell, lost in the scene before him. Cakes, lost in the spotlight; Sweet's light emanating the whole room.
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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.
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