#original my work

[nieuwe-secession]

Airplanes

[bloodybellycomb]

One massive, legitimate way to improve as a writer or artist or in any creative endeavor really, is to become absolutely obsessed with something and to allow yourself to be weird about it. Genuinely mean this btw.

[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.

[ispyspookymansion]

BOO!

oh sorry….come in…..hello…welcome to my halloween party ^_^ feel free to take a piece of candy and a goodie bag before you go okay? have a fun (and nostalgic) halloween season!!

[egophiliac]

bring back zooterkins, the best 17th-century swear word

I don't normally do Just Characters Swearing, but. ...this kind of wrote itself and then wouldn't leave my head. it comes from both a piece of character-writing advice that has always stuck with me, and also my conviction that Leona is 1000% funnier as a character if his dialogue has to stay G-rated. let Kalim say fuck, but don't let Leona say bastard.

(I'm sorry)

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

i'm begging you guys to start pirating shit from streaming platforms. there are so many websites where you can stream that shit for free, here's a quick HOW TO:

1) Search for: watch TITLE OF WORK free online

2) Scroll to the bottom of results. Click any of the "Complaint" links

3) You will be taken to a long list of links that were removed for copyright infringement. Use the 'find' function to search for the name of the show/movie you were originally searching for. You will get something like this (specifics removed because if you love an illegal streaming site you don't post its url on social media)

4) each of these links is to a website where you can stream shit for free. go to the individual websites and search for your show/movie. you might have to copy-paste a few before you find exactly what you're looking, but the whole process only takes a minute. the speed/quality is usually the same as on netflix/whatever, and they even have subtitles! (make sure to use an adblocker though, these sites are funded by annoying popups)

In conclusion, if you do this often enough you will start recognizing the most dependable websites, and you can just bookmark those instead. (note: this is completely separate from torrenting, which is also a beautiful thing but requires different software and a vpn)

you can also download the media in question (look for a "download" button built into the video window, or use a browser extension such as Video DownloadHelper.)

[tizzymcwizzy]

for anyone that doesn't know, i recently started school again! (that's why ive been so mia) so ill be posting class projects whenever i finish them,,, this was a figure drawing assignment :)

you can get a print of this here!

[nonbinary-octopus]

if you got an additional line of income that guaranteed your basic needs would be met, (notes below)

notes:

- the money can come from whatever source you'd like to imagine. UBI, sugar daddy, magically delivered in unmarked bills onto your dining table overnight by elves, blackmailing jeff bezos, wherever

- it will keep coming indefinitely

- basic needs: housing, food, medical care, clothes, a bit of disposable income, etc. You would not be rich, but you would have enough. It will rise with inflation and such, to have the same purchasing power as before, and will cover you and your dependents

- any money you earn at your job (or anywhere) is on top of the basic needs money. How much you get is not affected by how much you make elsewhere

- vacation doesn’t necessarily mean you go anywhere; you just don't need to go to work

[pen-of-roses]

Do y'all ever think about how cool it is that art inspires other art inspires other art inspires other art in an endless cycle

[unpretty]

the thing about having been really broke. averaging $500 a month in a good year broke. using a gamestop credit card i shouldn't have qualified for to buy taco bell gift cards for food broke. is that i am SO bad with money. i have a degree in accounting and i am so bad with money. i do not think of myself as superstitious at all but money feels so cursed. not in a spiritual way, i mean literally. practically.

having 'too much' money feels so bad. money is a thing you spend as soon as you get it because it's so cursed. the more it is the more cursed it is. i save too much money and bad things will happen that cost all my money. money is a thing that summons expenses. if i have no money and the car breaks down i find a way to make it work. i scrounge and resell and pass the hat and talk to my mom's friend's friend who knows a guy and in the end i'm so relieved to be right back where i started. but if i were saving my money for a new computer and then the car broke down, the money is just gone. i spent the money i saved for a thing i wanted on a thing i needed instead and after all that hoping i'm right back where i started.

i get a windfall and i set the money aside because if i'm careful that's enough to pay for gas for months. but then i need to pay for heat and i apply for assistance and they look at my bank account and see i have money and now they won't help pay for heat. soon it's just a habit. i get the money and i spend the money. immediately, as soon as possible, get this money away from me. don't even save enough for cigarettes. i can find money for cigarettes, somehow i can always find money for cigarettes. cigarette money is a weird magical fake money i summon from dark corners whenever i run out of cigarettes. i don't know how it works either. i've tried to summon the cigarette money for things that aren't cigarettes and it never works. just get this out of my bank account. get it out of here before something notices there's money here.

anyway i'm working on it but god it's hard

[cozylittleartblog]

what if there was a plague doctor that was so so so cute (and was also secretly a bird themself)

[nieuwe-secession]

Spring

[winter-mornings]

Flightless bird

[solardrake]

Delivering mail to the furthest corners of the server ✉✈

[bakedbeanchan]

[birbs-in-space]

curious about what's in store for you for 2024? :D

Let AO3 decide!

(Updated from 2023: Up-to-date tag bank, opt-in tag categories, optional dark mode! As always: proceed with informed consent.)