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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for the new year, i have decided to make a couple edits and additions to the almighty Calendar. happy 2024.
IT JUST HAPPENS
DAY 15 GIVE IT UP FOR DAY 15
Thursday the 20th
The Fifth of Wednesday
Second Week of May: Eurovision
Sometime in June: That One Halloween Post Starts Circulating
Sometime in July: Dancing Pumpkin Man Video/Gif
WEEKLY EVENTS
(at least the ones i celebrate)
Every Monday: Garfield Hates Mondays
Every Tuesday: Tom Servo Tuesday
Every Wednesday: It Is Wednesday My Dudes
Every Thursday: Out of Touch Thursday
Every Friday: Flat Fuck Friday
Every Saturday: Sea Slug Saturday
Every Sunday: Energy Sword Sunday
YEARLY EVENTS
January 1: Copyright Expiration Day
January 8: Spiders Georg Day
January 16: Appreciate a Dragon Day
January 18: Bug Race
January 29: Threshold Day
All of February: Funguary
ALSO All of February: Femslash February
February 3: WOE, VANILLA EXTRACT BE UPON YE
February 13: Galentines Day
February 14: Aromantic/Asexual Day
March 9: Miku Day
March 10: Mario Day
March 14: Pi Day
March 15: Ides of March
March 23: Ever Given Got Stuck Today
April 1: Mishapocalypse
April 2: Dashcon Announcement Anniversary
April 3: Dannypocalypse
April 8: Rex Manning Day
ALSO April 8: MARGARET THATCHER IS DEAD
April 13: Neil Banging Out The Tunes
ALSO April 13: Homestuck Day
April 20: haha 420 blaze it
April 25: The Perfect Date
April 28: Ed Balls Day
April 30: It's Gonna Be May
All of May: Mermay
May 3: Beginning of Dracula Daily
May 4: May the 4th Be With You
May 5: Revenge of the Fifth
May 25: The Glorious 25th of May
All of June: Pride Month
ALSO All of June: IT'S HALLOWEEN TIME TO GET SPOOKY
June 5: Barricade Day
ALSO June 5: RONALD REAGAN IS DEAD
June 12: Another Homestuck Day
June 16: Let Papyrus Say Fuck
June 22: Summerween
All of July: Disability Pride Month
July 13-15: Dashcon Anniversary
July 20: Moon Landing
September 8: The Queen Is Dead and Sans Undertale Killed Her
September 11: Mole Interest Monday
September 19: Talk Like A Pirate Day
September 21: DO YOU REMEMBER-
All of October: SKELETON WAR
ALSO All of October: People Draw A Lot Month? (so many names)
October 3: Mean Girls Day
ALSO October 3: Fullmetal Alchemist Day
October 13: Treat Yo' Self
October 20: Unnecessary Feelings Day
October 31: HALLOWEEN
November 5: honestly what didn't happen that day
November 19: Goncharov
November 29: HENRY KISSINGER IS DEAD
All of December: Will the Gävle Goat Get Destroyed Again?
December 10: Please, It's Christmas
December 12: Hawaii Part 2
December 23: Christmas Adam
December 24: ALMOST CHRISTMAS MEANS IT WASN'T CHRISTMAS
ALSO December 24: Cabinet Man Day
December 27: Porn Ban Effective Today
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probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.
we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."
at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.
the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.
the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.
what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.
here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.
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hate how all these apocalyptic films show society breaking down the hot minute the grid goes down, with all the survivors banding off into tiny violent gangs that prey on each other.
bitch you are a member of one of the most social species in existence! it is actually insane the extent to which humans have evolved to use cooperation as our main survival tool. humans have been building and then rebuilding societies for as long as disasters have been bringing them down. an apocalypse would be fucking awful, but the survivors would end up building communities and networks and pooling resources and knowledge, because that's what humans do. that's what they DO!!!
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