honestly you are so right abt the descriptions of ROs in IF. some of them will LITERALLY go like "omg they look like a supermodel". i cannot express how boring that is. it doesn't tell me anything about the character and their idiosyncrasies. and it's hard to wrap my head around the mental image of a cast who is supposed be so much hotter than everyone else in the world. like, my suspension of disbelief is being spread thin rn.

i agree abt comments on the MC being conventionally attractive as well. some of my MCs are decidedly NOT, and then the game tries to dispute me on it. lol

i also think all of this is harmful on a wider level bc it reinforces that 1) beauty is a scale and 2) everyone has to fit into beauty standards to be worthy. but most ppl arent ready for THAT conversation.

thank you :-) hope you dont mind me using this ask to share some more of my thoughts; i complained a lot about what i dislike without really giving any alternatives or examples of what i do like. obviously this is personal opinion and i am Not a professional, i’m just a hobby writer and i don’t intend for any of this to be word of god or anything like that, and my writing is far from "perfect," but this is kind of the baseline i use for myself and what i strive for, and maybe someone will find it useful.

first, to explain the big issue i really have, it is exactly what you said in your last point, about beauty standards. if i wanted to be generous when reading the "supermodel hot" description, i would say that "supermodel" could mean anything - particularly now, the modeling industry is far more diverse than it was in the 90s/early 00s. i could read "supermodel" and just infer that clearly this person is just meant to be very attractive, and that's all it's telling me. but really what is usually and truly meant by "supermodel hot" is skinny and conventionally attractive (adhering to eurocentric beauty standards and gender roles). "supermodel hot" is just a way of implying that without really saying it, because if you said that out loud it's a bit…. 😬

and it's just really boring. when i hear "supermodel hot" i envision a line of identical barbie/ken dolls, indistinguishable and grossly perfect. where is the pizzazz? where is the personality?

to be fair, this is not me saying you cannot describe someone as "supermodel hot" - like i said, supermodel can technically mean anything. but if you're going to do that, you need to give me something else, too, that tells me exactly what you mean by "supermodel hot."

so how do you do that?

my first bit of advice is both my favorite and most controversial…. show, don't tell. obviously my writing style leans heavily into elaborate descriptions and building atmosphere, but not everyone writes the same. however, when it comes to character descriptions, i still think this advice is solid, even if you have a less flowery style, because it’s not really just about detailed descriptions, it's about character design. the original post already talks about it, but essentially: Show me why this person is attractive, as opposed to just Telling me.

specifically for IF, (though context matters so this varies) but i would actually completely avoid describing someone outright as attractive, handsome, beautiful, etc. especially upon first introductions. the player is going to be the one to decide if this person is attractive - you don't need to tell them that. it's also going to be assumed that the player is aware what kind of game they're playing - they know this is an RO, you don't need to shove it down their throats by emphasizing how hot and amazing they are.

when i write a straightforward physical description, there are only two things i absolutely need to get across in their introduction: hair and skin tone. i actually prefer less detailed introductions, and find it more natural when the player discovers things organically through the text. you're not going to notice every little thing about a person when you first meet them!

what you do notice: hair, skin tone, any distinguishing features.

Lea has the beauty marks beneath their eye, and long, dark hair. Merry has her bandana, red hair, and she also has a tooth gap, and since she's smiling when you meet her, the hunter notices. Clementine has obnoxious clothes and curly hair. Noel has the gold hunter eyes, xir eye makeup, and xir locs.

in tnp, i do actually have a bit more of detailed introduction for everyone, because i can get away with it - their intros are pretty spread out, with Clem's in the prologue, and Merry's and Noel's in ch1. you already know Lea, so their features are peppered in throughout the prologue and ch1 - i try to avoid direct descriptions for any characters that have a pre-established relationship with the mc, because the mc already knows what that character looks like. i like to work it in for the player as they read. i would not do my intros this way if you met everyone at the same time - you want to avoid overwhelming the reader or confusing them with too many people at once.

just give them the distinct features.

Merry is a tall woman, though not as tall as Lea, with long auburn hair and tanned, freckled skin. She has a bandana covering her right eye, and when she smiles, you notice a charming little gap between her two front teeth. Noel, standing at her side, is shorter and larger than her, with dark brown skin and short, locked hair swept back out of his face, the gold in his eyes flashing against his white eyeliner as he glances between you and Lea. Clementine, the little bard, stands behind the both of them, wringing their hands and hiding behind their short brown curls. The ruffles of their dress are a stark white against their olive skin, and you can't help but be assaulted by their loud jacket, both in color and volume, bells sewn haphazardly into the fabric that sound softly with each little movement, giving away their nerves as they shrink back even more behind Noel.

this is a short snappy introduction. it gives a straightforward physical description of everyone, a quick mention of unique features, and with Clementine we also get a bit of their mannerisms right away. as the story progresses, and you get to know them more, you'll also notice more. personally, in real life, i do not notice eye color right away, unless someone has a very distinct eye color - this is something that you could include in first introductions, or mention later, in a one-on-one scene with the character where the mc notices it for the first time. Clementine's freckles, Merry's tattoos and scars, Noel's jewelry - that kind of thing can be slowly fed to the player over time. i also like to save the "curve of their lips" kind of stuff for more flirty/intimate scenes. there's no reason to comment on that when you're first meeting, especially in a tense situation where that would be the last thing on the hunter's mind - like i said, the player knows these are potential ROs, you don't need to force it. i also like having certain distinct, consistent features i bring up in those one-on-one/intimate scenes - i said before i tend to focus on Lea's and Noel's eyes, while i typically mention Clementine's curls or Merry's red hair and freckles. the more you get to know them, the more attractive those distinct features will become.

and the other important thing to remember is that it doesn't all have to be a clinical physical description. there are plenty of games i've played that actually have very little physical description, but each character has a very distinct Vibe. are they broody? are they bubbly? are they excitable? are they mischievous? how do they carry themselves? i describe Merry as commanding when you first meet her. Noel is graceful when xe comes in to heal you.

what are their little quirks? Lea always has a furrowed brow, or they're fidgeting with their thumb ring. Merry likes to smirk and tease and cross her arms. Clementine wrings their hands and pulls on their curls. Noel smiles softly, messes with xir locs, and will duck inside xir hood just like the hunter. you give them mannerisms, you give them charm, and people will find them attractive without you having to call them supermodels and imply some impossible standard. it will also make your characters more genuine and likable, as well as unique - these are not cardboard cutout supermodels, and by giving them unique features and emphasizing/romanticizing those features it will make them attractive in a more memorable way. and if you're lucky, it will force players to challenge beauty standards elsewhere. i want to wax poetic about how sexy i think Noel's stomach looks in tight leather armor, and the player is going to read it - a romantic description like that may challenge preconceived ideas that person may have about fat stomachs. this is also why i like to emphasize Lea's black eyes so much as well.

when it comes to the mc, i try to avoid having any of the ROs directly comment about anything physical, unless it's something that is fully established in game - like their scars, or the fact that they're a bit muscular from combat training/their lifestyle. i already explained that i don't think a character calling someone hot actually implies "conventional attractiveness," since beauty/attraction is subjective, so i think it would be silly to completely avoid those kinds of compliments. i think what's important is how you execute them.

Merry is always trying to look into the hunter's hood, and if you go and see her in the evening, she'll say she "likes seeing your face." it doesn't imply anything about how that face looks, if that makes sense. Noel does call the hunter attractive, but it's about their scars, something that is typically "unconventional" and again doesn't really imply anything about how the hunter looks - just that Noel thinks their scars make them attractive.

we already talked about the "you're so hot when you're mad" type of comment, but an example of that kind of compliment done Well that always comes to mind for me is Alistair in dragon age: origins, when he suddenly calls the warden beautiful in a quiet moment with just the two of them - he really means it, and it clearly doesn't really have anything to do with how the warden actually looks, but how he's feeling in that moment. it's always felt really authentic to me, like he just couldn't contain himself and has to blurt it out - as opposed to a forced, quippy one liner, or a sudden, obscenely sexual remark that just makes me cringe. (not that some of those scenes in origins don't also make me cringe. but we can't all be perfect all of the time….)

and i'm not trying to say all flirty/suggestive compliments are off the table - Merry and Clementine are the two characters that make more overtly sexual comments, and if that's fitting for the character, then go for it - there are plenty of moments where a playful, spicy comment does hit right, but don't overdo it. Merry is clearly the "no strings attached" love interest, but she isn't constantly talking about how she wants to fuck the hunter in all of their interactions. honestly.... it's weird, and can verge on sexual harassment if you do it too often and at inappropriate moments. but there's nothing wrong with showing sexual interest, and again, attraction is subjective - people do not have to be "conventionally attractive" to be desirable, no matter what society tries to tell you. it's not that people are "ugly", it's that society's beauty standards for what is "beautiful" are too narrow, limiting and unrealistic. (read this article from the original post)

so just in general, with the mc, my advice is to be mindful. you don't want to "default" them (typically as thin and white) when the mc can be anyone - you want to avoid implying anything that could alienate potential players (blushing, hair, etc). though there are games with more pre-set mcs, including personality as well as potentially physical appearance, like with tnp the hunter is always going to have scars and have at least a little visible muscle, so that's something to also keep in mind while making your character as a reader.

all of that to say, character design is important, the little things are important. don't just settle for "supermodel hot." give them something to work with! you want to actually make a character, not a boring, pretty doll.

sorry for the long post, i hope this is helpful to somebody, or at least interesting to read about, if you can decipher the rambling. i tend to jump on the chance to talk about this kind of thing, so thanks for the ask, even though you didn't ask for this at all. lol ❤

and of course, context matters, so this may not all be applicable to every game/story ever, and i don't intend to imply that any of this is the only Correct way. if you're writing a fast pace, spicey romance, it will be different! different styles, different settings, different tones, different vibes, it will all be different, and that's fine. variety is the spice of life :-) this is just how i approach character design, and it's what i like to see as a reader, and what i try to achieve as a writer.

EVERY SINGLE DAY there are MILLIONS of characters in their late 20s who get falsely accused of being father figures to teenagers when in reality the description of "weird older cousin" or "step-sibling that moved out before you were born" is 1000000x more apt

do you ever see a person and you are overcome with incredible fondness? and you just think "oh." but not in a romantic or sexual way you are just filled with warmth and it makes you happy, it just does. and you think "i'm so happy you exist. i'm happy you are somewhere out there in the world, doing your thing". it's love but also not entirely

like people are lovely and i feel it in my entire chest like a burning candle that smells like roses and a sunny day

god i love my friends. shout out to people who love their friends. this is a post for friend lovers

Listen man, you guys can't be like "you guys need to be normal about asexuality" and then turn around and get weirdly judgemental when you find out someone doesn't have sex by choice. Like that's weird that some of you do that.

dm'ing a mutual you've never interacted with one-on-one is so embarrassing like. hi.... im sorry. you can kill me if you want... can i have your discord..... if not.. feel free to shoot me down where i stand... im sorry.. i'll leave..

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.

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

calling my lover "mine" but not in the way that my toothbrush or notebook are mine, mine in the way my neighborhood is mine, and also everybody else's, "mine" like mine to tend to, mine to care for, mine to love. "mine" not like possession but devotion.

"Tumblr is my bedroom" this "tumblr is a pinboard" that

Tumblr is an apartment complex with thin walls and every so often you just have to listen to your neighbors say the most deranged shit imaginable

tumblr if people reblogged content as much as they're booping each other rn

she lets me hit because i use his pronouns interchangeably

when we’re done with our overwhelming grief we’ll eat i guess

Beautiful from Ordinary Days

posting across the targetverse here bc it did numbers on twitter

Marcille was born on the island of Lesbos and her interests are sweet pies and even sweeter girls.