#this was just great

[koobiie]

shoutout to everyone who wants to infodump but cant string together coherent thoughts to form sentences and instead just look at you like this

#and by 'everyone' i mean me. im just hoping other people relate lmao #someone asks me about a thing i like and im just like h.................. #been thinking about The Character for a solid 6 months+ and let me tell you. expldoeing soon #this is about ffxv btw . how am i supposed to say how much it lives in my brain . i cant think #text #1k #5k #10k #15k #20k #great googly moogly #30k #40k #50k #60k #boooy what da heeel #70k #80k

[butchdonne]

what studying literature feels like

#it’s always one of these two. #either i have a great point in my head i just can’t express it right or i have OUGHDGDHHD in my head and i need to make that useful……. #pip squeaks #literature

[free-piza]

enough about taylor swift already. reblog and tag the smallest, least known artist you listen to

#txt #put your energy where it'll make a difference #i have not and will never be silent about sperling but they are not the smallest in my library #it might be Dachs - which is swiss! #and i love that for me because i understand fuck all it's all just vibes to me #and the vibes are great #muted post

[goldensunset]

advice i think we should tell children is that when adults say stuff like ‘now that i’m an adult i get really excited about stuff like coffee tables and bathrooms and rugs etc’ they don’t mean ‘and now i don’t care about blorbo and squimbus from my childhood tv shows anymore’ bc your average adult still loves all the same pop culture stuff they always did; they just have a greater appreciation for the mundane as well. growing up just means you can enjoy life twice as much now. you can get really excited about a new stuffed animal AND about a new kitchen sponge. peace and love

#peach rambles #you don’t have to get rid of blorbo and squimbus!! they would look great on top of your beautiful new nightstand you’ve been excited about #hall of fame i guess #i get. the sneaking suspicion this post has inspired at least two other posts #to the effect of ‘uhmmm i was ALWAYS excited about these things??’ #yes i did have to do my own chores as a kid prommy. i just didn’t have feelings about stuff yet ok

[mcapriglione-art]

what do you want!!!!!!!!

#great #thanks #cat #comic #cats #my art #she's literally been screaming at me all day #and im cleaning so im moving about the house and she's just following me going MEOW ME WO M WOWM ME WO MEOW #and ill pet her and give her treats and shes like mewo mwow meow meow meow

[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.

#I found their original stuff while I was researching various waterhorses and their folklore for no reason #because one of the characters in their original work happens to be an each uisge #and then it turned out it ALSO included a lot of figures from welsh folklore in general #so yknow if you happen to have my incredibly specific hyperfixations you'll love it but even if you don't it's great #I didn't mean to bring up phantom of the opera so much it just happens to be very relevant to a lot of my talking points #I haven't actually seen it in years

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

#due to the Great Data Decay academics write viciously argumentative articles on which episodes aired in what order #at conferences professors have known to engage in physically violent altercations whilst debating the air date number of household viewers #90% of the couch gags have been lost and there is a billion dollar trade in counterfeit “lost copies” #serious note: i'll be honest i always assumed it was english imperialism that made shakespeare so inescapable in the 19th/20th cent #like his writing should have become obscure at the same level of his contemporaries #but british imperialists needed an ENGLISH LANGUAGE (and BRITISH) writer to venerate #and shakespeare wrote so many damn things that there was a humongous body of work just sitting there waiting to be culturally exploited... #i know it didn't happen like this but i imagine a English Parliament House Committee Member For The Education Of The Masses or something #cartoonishly stumbling over a dusty cobwebbed crate labelled the Complete Works of Shakespeare #and going 'Eureka! this shall make excellent propoganda for fabricating a national identity in a time of great social unrest. #it will be a cornerstone of our elitist educational institutions for centuries to come! long live our decaying empire!' #'what good fortune that this used to be accessible and entertaining to mainstream illiterate audience members... #..but now we can strip that away and make it a difficult & alienating foundation of a Classical Education! just like the latin language :)' #anyway maybe there's no such thing as the 'greatest writer of x language' in ANY language? #maybe there are just different styles and yes levels of expertise and skill but also a high degree of subjectivity #and variance in the way that we as individuals and members of different cultures/time periods experience any work of media #and that's okay! and should be acknowledged!!! and allow us to give ourselves permission to broaden our horizons #and explore the stories of marginalized/underappreciated creators #instead of worshiping the List of Top 10 Best (aka Most Famous) Whatevers Of All Time/A Certain Time Period #anyways things are famous for a reason and that reason has little to do with innate “value” #and much more to do with how it plays into the interests of powerful institutions motivated to influence our shared cultural narratives #so i'm not saying 'stop teaching shakespeare'. but like...maybe classrooms should stop using it as busy work that (by accident or designs) #happens to alienate a large number of students who could otherwise be engaging critically with works that feel more relevant to their world #(by merit of not being 4 centuries old or lacking necessary historical context or requiring untaught translation skills) #and yeah...MAYBE our educational institutions could spend less time/money on shakespeare critical analysis and more on... #...any of thousands of underfunded areas of literary research i literally (pun!) don't know where to begin #oh and p.s. the modern publishing world is in shambles and it would be neat if schoolwork could include modern works? #beautiful complicated socially relevant works of literature are published every year. it's not just the 'classics' that have value #and actually modern publications are probably an easier way for students to learn the basics. since lesson plans don't have to include the #important historical/cultural context many teens need for 20+ year old media (which is older than their entire lived experience fyi)

[yourangle-yuordevil]

That time in ancient Greece when Aziraphale needed a speedy horse and accidentally invented the pegasus

VS.

Whatever Crowley had going on in medieval times

#Crowley just really misses the unicorns ok??? #Also Crowley didn't start from a horse to make a new unicorn #he looked at a horse and was like.... nah #then looked at a goat and was like YEAAAAH LET'S GOO LET'S MAKE YOU BIG AF AND YOU CAN ALSO SPIT FIRE WHAT A GREAT IDEA!! #While Aziraphale is fretting over the fact that he accidentally gave WINGS to a HORSE and every time that the angels asks about it he's lik #whaaat?? PegaSUS naaaah never heard about it. Must be a made up thing. humans...right?? silly little things ahahah *sweat nervously* #good omens #crowley #aziraphale #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #pegasus #unicorn #Do I wanna draw the precious good omens beans? yes. #is this an excuse to draw more horses? also yes. #medieval crowley #ancient greek aziraphale #CAVALLIIIIIII 🐎🐴🐎🐴🐎🐴🐎🐴 #good omens comic #historical husbands

[daisywords]

One of my biggest nitpicks in fiction concerns the feeding of babies. Mothers dying during/shortly after childbirth or the baby being separated form the mother shortly after birth is pretty common in fiction. It is/was also common enough in real life, which is why I think a lot of writers/readers don't think too hard about this. however. Historically, the only reason the vast majority of babies survived being separated from their mother was because there was at least one other woman around to breastfeed them. Before modern formula, yes, people did use other substitutes, but they were rarely, if ever, nutritionally sufficient.

Newborns can't eat adult food. They can't really survive on animal milk. If your story takes place in a world before/without formula, a baby separated from its mother is going to either be nursed by someone else, or starve.

It doesn't have to be a huge plot point, but idk at least don't explicitly describe the situation as excluding the possibility of a wetnurse. "The father or the great grandmother or the neighbor man or the older sibling took and raised the baby completely alone in a cave for a year." Nope. That baby is dead I'm sorry. "The baby was kidnapped shortly after birth by a wizard and hidden away in a secret tower" um quick question was the wizard lactating? "The mother refused to see or touch her child after birth so the baby was left to the care of the ailing grandfather" the grandfather who made the necessary arrangements with women in the neighborhood, right? right? OR THAT GREAT OFFENDER "A newborn baby was left on the doorstep and they brought it in and took care of it no issues" What Are You Going to Feed That Baby. Hello?

Like. It's not impossible, but arrangements are going to have to be made. There are some logistics.

#idk what to tag this #worldbuilding #writing fiction #historical fiction #fantasy #a real-life example: my dad (a pediatrician) was once entrusted with the care of a baby who was born with a rare condition #this was in a place without great hospital/medical access and anyway they were going to fly the baby over #and he specifically asked them to bring the mother and baby #they show up with baby and...the baby's uncle #and he was like. y'all. do you think I asked for the mom to come just for fun??? We don't have formula here. what is the baby going to eat?

[roach-works]

pokemon theory i just thought of: new pokemon appear in the pokemon universe when they're designed in this one. they're created ex nilho but they have retroactive realness; they weren't here yesterday, but today they've always existed.

pokemon researchers have had to suss this out on their own over decades, and it's a really unpopular theory, made worse by the fact that no one can come up with a better one. from their perspective pokemon generate spontaneously but in both chronological directions, and the similarities of many pokemon seem to be detived from a conscious and creative understanding of the world--their world, though? what other world could there be?. there are ice cream pokemon and pokeball pokemon and sword pokemon and trash bag pokemon.

there are so many pokemon with both wings and a beak. is this like swords? is there an ur-flying type that this class evokes? there are so many canine pokemon. but what is a canine? is there such a thing? there's only one set of sword pokemon, right. one tea-set line. is *feline* a coherent category? would the ur-feline have two legs or four? why do so many pokemon have humanlike bodyplans-- but then again, why so few?

pichu has always been the prior form of pikachu. why didn't it get counted in order? why do we call it that instead of saying pikachu is the middle evolution of the pichu line? why can so many trainers remember finding this out well into their journeys? why didn't ash start with one?

this is why pokemon researchers do a lot of labwork, drink heavily, and use ten year olds for field research. you can't have an existential crisis if you don't even know what time is yet.

#pokemon #ash: i just found a new region called jotoh! #oak: hey cool so apparently the world is round now #ash: wow! #oak: was the world round yesterday #ash: sure? #oak: great talk im gonna go have some grownup lemonade now bye

[zipadeea]

I don't mind that Walker Scobell doesn't look like book!Percy because 1) he's absolutely got the spirit. Walker basically is Percy, you can see and feel that in every one of his scenes, and

2) If book!Percabeth had a baby, he would look exactly like Walker Scobell, and I think that's hilariously perfect

#pjo #percy jackson #disney #annabeth chase #percabeth #walker scobell #he's just a great percy #and he also happens to look just like the combination of book percy and annabeth and it's great #pjo tv show #pjo ser

[pokimoko]

I can't keep being fundamentally changed as a person by animated movies, it's just not sustainable.

#animation #animated film #animated movies #across the spiderverse #across the spider-verse #spiderverse #puss in boots #puss in boots the last wish #puss in boots 2 #nimona #nimona film #yes i'm posting this specifically because i just watched nimona and am feeling all kinds of things but really these are all PEAK TIER #the fact they have ALL been released within 7 months of each other...like...woah we are thriving right now #stylised animation with its own unique style reflecting the movie i love you forever kissing you on the mouth #films that make me ferally rip up any and all art blocks to shreds #and that's just the animation side of things #i won't get started on the plots. they also make me want to bounce off of walls #hugging all these close to my chest #as well as all the other great animated movies that exist because animation wins all catergories for me always #(let's not forget anime movies either; y'all are beautiful too! keeping 2d animation alive and i'm so here for it)

[descendant-of-truth]

Shipping is fun and all but I swear every single time someone makes a comment, whether as a joke or in a legitimate analysis, about there being "no other explanation" for a pair's interactions, I lose just a bit more of my sanity

Like, no, you guys don't get it. Romance is not about the Amount of devotion, it's about the COLOR. the FLAVOR of it all. a character can be just as devoted to their platonic friend as they are to their romantic partner, and they don't love either of them more, just differently.

But because the majority of people still have it stuck in their minds that romance exists on the highest tier of love, I'm stuck seeing endless takes that boil down to "these two care about each other too much for it to NOT be romantic" as if that's the core determining factor to how literally any of this works

In conclusion: stop telling me that I don't understand the story if I don't interpret the leads as romantic, I am TIRED

#analysis #meta #miscellaneous #fandom #shipping #media discussion #amatonormativity #lgbtq #I feel like tagging any of the fandoms I was thinking of when writing this would be a little mean-spirited potentially #Disclaimer: no one has actually been telling me personally that I don't understand any story in particular #It's just that the way people tend to phrase their analyses feels unnecessarily targeted at the reader and that's just. not great #even if I agree with every other point they make

[talonsin]

#obviously all ships are great #i just like them. fucked up #fandom #profic #proship #pro fiction #comship #talon.txt

[snekboisworld]

I find it extremely funny that the entire Good Omens fandom is absolutely in love with Bildad the Shuhite for seemingly no reason. Can one of you please tell me why we love him so?

#good omens #bildad the shuhite #crowley #i mean i love him too #hes amazing #theres just no reason to enjoy this throw away joke as much as we all do #the good omens fandom is great

[foxofninetales]

One of the big differences I've noticed from getting into Chinese dramas is how spoiled you get from gifsets of shows you've never watched. You see a gifset from an American show of one person cradled in another person's arms, pierced with multiple arrows and spitting blood, and suddenly you've been spoiled for a major character death. You see the same thing in a Chinese drama and you've gained a net zero information wise.

#cdramas #great for people who don't like spoilers #terrible for those of us who are trying to figure out how a drama ends #was that the epic final sacrifice or just another day in the jianghu