Life Series: Angel's Blessing
...or how killing Skizz seems to lock you into a Top 2 placement.
Welcome to another post where Eluminium goes insane about Skizzleman because the brainrot is consuming me.
So y'all know of the whole "Skizz and the number 3" thing? Well, a part I forgot to mention in the original post was a weird thing relating to Skizz's last deaths. Now Skizz is very good at dying early, he and Jimmy are the only two people who've never made it past session 7. In 3rd Life, he was killed by Grian. In Last Life, he was shot by Ren. And in Limited Life he sacrificed himself to TIES by having Etho kill him.
But.
In (almost) every single death he's had, he's been killed by either the winner of the game or by second place. And the other one (Scar for 3rd Life and Scott for Last Life) was also there to witness it firsthand. Every time. It's not as strong in Limited Life, but it's still there. Who was a witness to Skizz's sacrifice? Impulse. Who came second? Impulse. Martyn didn't witness it nor permakill Skizz, but you could argue that one of the kills Martyn got on Skizz pushed him towards his eventual martyrdom.
In almost every series, the one to either permakill Skizz or watch Skizz permadie gets top 2. With no fail (so far.) Three times in a row.
Hmmm, well isn't that weird? And it's happened in every series Skizz has been in. And what are the only numbers above three? That's right. One and Two. First and Second. It's almost as if Skizz's weird curse tied to the three works as a blessing for whoever is there to kill him or watch him die. I suppose one man's curse is another man's blessing.
So uhm, petition to call this weird phenomenon "Angel's Blessing." For...obvious reasons.
Hey I mean, could probably work it into a funny design thing.
Just imagine Desert Duo in the cactus ring. As they throw punch after punch and speak their woes on how they don't wanna do this, two cracked and barely noticeable triangle-shaped halos (haha get it because three) are hovering over both their heads. As Scar's health starts draining, the halo fades with him, while Grian's only grows stronger, and more stable. Eventually, Grian's fist cracks right through Scar's barely visible golden headpiece, and with that, Scar has no chance. Not that he put up much resistance in the first place.
Just imagine Scott and Ren's final battle. Scott, fresh from his kill on Martyn, with his triangle halo hovering, just taking shot after shot on Ren. With every hit, Ren's halo grows weaker. However, it isn't Scott who smashes the fragile thing into pieces, instead the honor is given to a random zombie, who doesn't care what it just destroyed. When Scott stands victorious, divine lightning strikes and shatters his halo too.
Just imagine Martyn cutting down Scott first because he knows. He's an observant guy, he's noticed the little gold barely-noticeable triangle floating over Impulse's head. A naive soul would have mistaken it for a trick of the light, but Martyn sees how it cracks as if solid when he ends Scott's life. Scott had to be first, Scott didn't have a halo this time. If Martyn himself looked up, it's quite likely he'd see his own little triangle. Strong, solid, blessed. But the one floating over the demon's head is a broken, helpless, sad little thing uselessly clinging onto hope after being so thoroughly crushed.
Martyn's brain takes him back for a second. Back to the very first session of this damned death game. Back to that cave, to the rush of the Boogeyman curse, and back to Skizz. As Skizz called him up to give him a sweet compliment, he readied his blade. But all he saw was this poor wingless angel, an angel who had his two snow-white wings hacked off by two boogies barely ten minutes in. All that remained was his halo, and if Martyn wanted to kill Skizz, he would have had to break it...and he couldn't bring himself to do it. It was almost too pathetic. He let Skizz live, let him keep his last piece. And that would be a piece kept until Etho broke it on Skizz's behalf since Skizz never got Boogey killed again.
He couldn't go through with the backstabbing then. It's different now. Much blood-drenched time has passed since.
Now Martyn brings down his axe and lava on his ally, a betrayal he refrained from when this series started. He's numb by now.
When lightning strikes where Scott once stood, he looks over to a shocked Impulse. An Impulse with no armor, an Impulse who won't be able to react in time. Just as helpless and vulnerable as Skizz in that cave. The halo still sits right over the demonic horns, and to kill Impulse, he'll have to break it.
But Martyn is a different man now. Those acts of mercy are long gone. Now, he feels nothing as he mercilessly chases Impulse down and brings his axe through the halo that once made him hesitate. Wrathful, hungry, animalistic.
It's what these worlds do to them. It's what they do to them.
An Angel's Blessing can't guarantee victory. But it can guarantee something better than third.
And well. For once, the blessing went to Impulse. About time, considering Impulse has watched Skizz permadie every single time.
Isn't the Life series just full of fun patterns to discover?
btw Skizz said on the podcast today that he has a habit of sometimes kissing Impulse on the cheek when they're reunited. Just a fun fact to cheer you up <3
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not to be controversial bc I know this is like…not in line with shifting opinions on fanfic comment culture but if there’s a glaring typo in my work I will NOT be offended by pointing it out. if ao3 fucks up the formatting…I will also not be offended by having this pointed out…
‘looking forward to the next update’ and ‘I hope you update soon!’ are different vibes than a demand, and should be read in good faith because a reader is finding their way to tell you how much they love it. I will not be mad at this.
‘I don’t usually like this ship but this fic made me feel something’ is also incredibly high praise. I’m not going to get mad at this.
even ‘I love this fic but I’m curious about why you made [x] choice’ is just another way a reader is engaging in and putting thought into your work.
I just feel like a lot of authors take any comment that’s not perfectly articulated glowing praise in the exact manner they’re hoping to receive it in bad faith.
fic engagement has been dropping across the board over the last several years, and yes it’s frustrating but it isn’t as though I can’t see how it happens. comment anxiety can be a real thing. the last thing anyone wants to do is offend an author they love, and that means sometimes people default to silence.
idk where I’m going with this I guess aside from saying unless a comment is outright attacking me I’m never going to get mad at it, and I think a lot of authors should feel the same way. ESPECIALLY TYPOS PLZ GOD POINT OUT MY TYPOS.
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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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