#I thought I'd posted it

[zilabee]

A massive long post only I will care about, the best kind of post \o/ A meme about my fic, the wild and windy night.

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

It was meant to be a super quick fives times h/c fic to get all my favourite h/c scenarios into one fic, and the first chapters I wrote like that, super short easy sketches, and then I tried to write the last one just the same, but I realised something big needed to happen to make them actually see each other... and so I did a Terrible Thing to Paul.  And I did it without thinking, and then I realised that I didn’t know how to fix it, and having John show up and take care of him was basically useless because he wasn’t going to be okay and it was awful.  But I also couldn’t think how to change it, so I wrote eight longer less easy chapters trying to make him be okay, and then it was set in shape and I let it exist. 

2: What scene did you first put down?

The first one. I write things in their order. I mean I leave hard bits badly written and go back to them, but I write them badly before I go forward because otherwise I genuinely don't know what happens next.  How do you know what they’re going to do until they’ve done it?

3: What’s your favourite line of narration?

They are worn and grubby and beloved of the earth.

I don't know why but I really like it. I'm aware there are much more meaningful bits in my fic, and more poignant, but all the same.

I'm also fond of:

He is sitting on the floor and the floor is imaginary.

4: What’s your favourite line of dialogue?

"You're the one that broke it." "Ah, but it's your window." "Ah, but I haven't got any hands, you see."

I think being able to say that is why Paul needed John, more than any of the other things he needed him for.

5: What part was hardest to write?

The bit that I didn't write, where they talk about Klein and Apple and why it had all hurt so much. I stopped writing the fic for about three months when I got to that scene, because I kept writing myself into a corner where they actually had irreconcilable differences and kind of hated each other. Which was not my hope.

You know in the real world where they said they would have phone calls and it was fine until they would talk about business and then they hated each other? That. It made me doubt the existence of love or the possibility of reunion.

In the end I did get something I vaguely liked, about how it had been the first time they wanted different things, and acknowledging the pain of that on both sides, but I had to cut it out because it bogged them down further than I could deal with. I also think not really addressing it is more realistic than finding the words when they were both drunk and exhausted.

Of what stayed in, the hardest part was the ending (penultimate chapter, not the happy add-on) because I knew Paul wasn’t just going to be completely okay within a few weeks or something, and it’s odd writing fic that isn’t slash because the ending is usually just ‘THEY ARE TOGETHER AND HAPPY NOW’ but in this I just got them as close to committed to each other as I could, and was vaguely honest about the fact that they would probably fuck it all up as soon as we left.

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

It’s longer than all my other fic by about 20000 words.

7: Where did the title come from?

I think subconsciously I might have written the entire fic to fit inside a long and winding road, but honestly it was just a lovely surprise when I went looking for a title and realised that Paul wrote me a song! 

8: Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?

Only the real people and events that are in it.

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

Nope. What is this? Do people write ten versions of their fic and then pick the best?

10: Why did you choose this pairing for this particular story?

Because they were in it.

11: What do you like best about this fic?

I like the rhythm of it, and the stillness. I like that it’s finished and whole.  I really like that after George tells Paul the thing about how John is going to fall apart, they NEVER SPEAK AGAIN and Paul doesn’t even really explicitly think about George again.  I kept thinking I should fix that but it’s honestly one of my favourite bits, and closure would ruin it.  The way that Paul's messed up relationship with George isn't even something he thinks of as needing fixing, is so special to me.

12: What do you like least about this fic?

It’s odd because if you’d asked me at the time, I would have had a huge list of things I flat out hated about this fic.  HATED.  I can’t overstate how much I hated the entire thing when I was posting it, like I would post new chapters to tumblr and write huge essays in the tags about how awful it was and how much I hated it and how nobody should look at it - and then I’d delete them all before posting, because I know that’s annoying, and it never sounds sincere, it sounds like you’re begging for reassurance.  And I didn’t want reassurance.  I honestly just wanted to post my fic without anyone looking at it.  Although at the same time I genuinely really appreciated the comments because I could feel like even though it was an awful dreadful thing, people couldn’t tell.  So it was okay.

I think I’d read it and edited it so many times that I was pretty sure it didn’t mean anything at all any more, it had no emotion in it, and I’d cut out any of it that ever made any sense, it all seemed forced and stupid and bare and I couldn’t stand looking at it. I literally posted it because I knew that if I didn’t I would edit it forever, and I never wanted to look at it again.  I clearly remember thinking to myself: ‘well it’s never going to be good, you should just post it and then at least it’ll be dead’. 

But now I read it back and I really love it, I’m kind of proud of it, I think it’s quite sweet.  I guess... there are still small parts where I think the rhythm’s wrong, and I got stuck in John's headspace for a huge chunk towards the end and couldn't find a way around that which still annoys me.  But not enough to care or fix it.

13: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

"Bill Haley's whole back catalogue is running through John now"

I don't really listen to music when writing usually, but with this Two Hound Dogs was in my head from the moment they got drunk and it was late and cold and there was this whole feeling of so much weather outside that it almost feels like weather inside, and Bill Haley's music was running through all of it, so I left him in it, because he seemed to want to be there. And I listened to Two Hound Dogs every time I touched it.  It's music from the years when John found Paul, so it fits that way - I'm aware John was not fond of Bill Haley, but I kind of liked that. And I didn't know at the time, but there's also that thing where Paul says he went to see Bill Haley once, and people read it as saying he met John there, so that makes it more nicely meaningful and less random.

14: What happens after the end of this fic?

I think John needs countryside as much as Paul does, so I think he settles into being a part of their life pretty well, and then when it’s too quiet spends weekends with the others or down in London, and eventually he probably comes back from one of those trips with his new fancy posh gallery owner boyfriend in tow, and introduces him at dinner and both John and Linda get to watch Paul navigate John having a boyfriend \o/  Happy days.  And then... I think they’re just sort of happy enough.  Paul would learn to make music using one finger, like overdubbing little bits of piano with each other, and creating acapella albums, and generally finding new ways to do whatever occurred to him.  And then electronic stuff would come in and he’d be all over that. 

15: Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

No. Was my big angstfest of platonic soulmate reunion supposed to be secretly educational?

16: What did you learn from writing this fic?

That I should finish editing a fic before I start posting it. And that people who comment on chapter by chapter fic are just insanely kind, like wow.

[astrid-beck]

This is my unethical polycule. The nonmonogamy is consensual and negotiated we're just evil in other ways.

[coffee-cait]

To you, my dear audience, I dedicate my performance... I wonder,

гРł ฿Ɽł₦₲ ₳ Ⱡł₮₮ⱠɆ ₥ØⱤɆ JØɎ ł₦₮Ø ɎØɄⱤ ⱠłVɆ₴?

[whelvenwings]

Not straight, not cis, not allo people, I'm curious:

[magicomens]

Ah yes. Anthony Justdontgetstabbed Crowley.

First >> Prev >> Next

[frostbitten-etches]

made some transsexuality patches for my jacket >:3

"transsexuals have got to get meaner" is a phrase I like from @sweatermuppet 's designs but I had an idea and wanted to make my own patch design based on it!!

and "transsexuality is divine" is a design/phrase I made myself inspired by sweatermuppet's transsexual designs as well!

[abovobee]

[crimeronan]

i've seen a couple people in the notes of this very good post about fictional polyamory by @thebibliosphere say things along the lines of "oh, i've been doing it wrong :(" or "how do i know if i did this right??" or "i should probably give up and start over, i wrote this badly :(" and. no!!!!

(i AM seeing far MORE people say "oh, this clarified and helped me so much, i think i know how to fix issues i've been having with my own story" which. YES!!!!)

listen. if you're a monogamous person who's writing a polyamorous relationship, and you've been focusing mainly on The Triad and All Three Together All The Time as the endgame, that's literally fine. that's a perfectly acceptable and strong starting point for your plotting, imo. you do not need to give up on a story that you've started like this.

but the things discussed in the post Can and Should improve your execution!

you can keep the same plot beats and overall relationship arc 100%. polyamorous relationships are infinite in their formations, every one is unique. "basically a monogamous romance but with three people" Does exist, as a relationship type. you're not hashtag Misrepresenting (TM) poly people with it

BUT i do think it will help to read up on some poly people talking about how their relationships Differ from monogamous ones.

so i have outlined some basic important concepts about polyamory.

MORE IMPORTANTLY though, i've broken down some questions that you can answer throughout the writing process to strengthen your individual dyad relationships, your individual characterization, & your characters' individual feelings/experiences. this is a writing resource have fun

future kitkat butting in to say i spent over two hours writing this and it definitely needs a readmore. it is also NOT comprehensive. but everything should be pretty simple to follow! feel free to reblog if you find it helpful yourself or just want to reward me for how gotdan long this took KSLDKFJKDL.

i've grabbed quick links for a couple of the important concepts, some have SEO pitches in them but the info largely seems to be good. (if i missed anything Egregiously Gross on these sites i should be able to update the links with better ones later, since they're under the readmore.)

sidenote: this is NOT meant to be overwhelming, despite the length. if you can't read all of this, that's Okay. you do not need to give up on your writing.

here we go:

compersion!

compersion is a BIG thing in a lot of polyamorous relationships. it's joy derived from seeing two (or more) of your partners happy together, or joy derived from seeing your partner happy with someone else.

compersion is really important as a concept because it highlights that every individual relationship within a polycule is different -- and that that's a GOOD thing. it's sort of the inverse of jealousy.

by the "inverse of jealousy," i mean that instead of feeling left out and upset and possessive, you feel happy/joyous/content.

i can use personal experience as an example: it's a Relief for me when my partners receive joy/support/sex/romance/etc that i can't (or prefer not to) give them. and i love seeing my partners make each other laugh and be silly together.

it's 100% okay for a poly triad not to be together 100% of the time, it doesn't mean that the third member is being left out or not treated equally when two people do things alone together.

(i have individual dates with my partners all the time! PLUS larger 3-and-4-person date nights.)

if the third member DOES feel jealous or left out, then the polycule can have a conversation to figure out what needs/wants aren't being met, and solve that. this happens semi-regularly in my polycule, as it will happen in any relationship (including monogamous ones)! it's just part of being an adult, sometimes you have to talk about feelings.

metamours!

a metamour is someone who is dating your partner, but ISN'T dating you. this may not be relevant for people writing closed three-person romantic sexual triads, but it's a super helpful term to know.

the linked article also lists different types of metamour relationships with some fun phrasing i hadn't heard before. the tl;dr is: sometimes you'll be domestic cohabitation friends, sometimes you'll be buddies with your own friendship, sometimes you might not interact much outside of parties, every relationship is different.

there's no one-size-fits-all requirement for metamour relationships. sometimes polyamorous people will end up dating their metamour after a while (has happened to me), sometimes polyamorous people will break up with one partner for normal life reasons, but remain friendly metamours.

the goal of polyamory is NOT for EVERYONE to fall in love. it is 100% okay if this happens in your story, it happens in real life too! but it is also 100% okay for characters to be metamours without ever becoming "more than friends."

(sidenote: try to kill any internalized "more than" that you have when it comes to friendship. friends are just as important and special and vital as partners.)

of course there are a million ways for messiness to occur with metamours within a complex polycule, exactly like with close-knit platonic friend groups. however this post is not about that! there's enough "here's how polyamory can go wrong" stuff out there already, so i'm focusing on the positives here :)

open versus closed polyamorous relationships!

i'm struggling to find an online article that reflects my experience without directly contradicting at least SOME stuff. so i'll give a quick rundown

google has a bunch of conflicting definitions of open relationships and whether open relationships are different from polyamory. the general consensus seems to be that an open relationship prioritizes one partnership (often a marriage), but that each partner can have extraneous flings or long-term commitments (most often sexual in nature).

this is not typically how i use the term wrt polyamory. the poly concept is pretty simple. a closed polyamorous relationship is one with boundaries like a monogamous one. there are multiple partners in the polycule, but they are not interested in having anybody new join said polycule.

an open polyamorous relationship tends to be more flexible -- it just means that IF someone in the polycule develops mutual feelings for a new person, it's fine for them to become part of said polycule if they want to! the relationship/person is open to newcomers.

some groups will need to negotiate this all together, others will just go "haha, you kids have fun." just depends on the individuals!

with open AND closed polyamorous relationships, the most important thing is making sure that there's respectful communication and that everyone is on the same page. but there's no one-size-fits-all way to do that.

i wish i could give you guys a prescriptive "You Must Do It This Way" guide, but that's.... basically the opposite of what polyamory is about, HAHA.

feelings for multiple people!

i was gonna tack this on to the previous section but decided it warranted its own lil bit.

a defining feature (....i'm told?) of monogamous relationships is that a monogamous person only has feelings for One individual at a time. they only want a relationship with one individual at a time. or, if they DO have feelings for multiple people simultaneously, they're still only comfortable dating one person at a time & being exclusive with that one person.

this is perfectly fine!

the poly experience is generally different from this. but once again..... polyamorous people all have different individual perspectives on this.

for me, i have never been able to draw hard boxes around romantic vs sexual vs platonic relationships, & i love many people at once. my personal polycule lacks many strict definitions beyond "these are my chosen people, i want to forge a life with them indefinitely, whatever shape that life takes"

some poly people feel explicit romantic or sexual attraction to multiple people at once, some poly people feel almost no romantic or sexual attraction at all. i'd say that MOST poly people feel different things for different partners, which is not a bad thing!

some poly people are even monogamous-leaning -- they have just chosen one romantic partner who is themselves part of a larger polycule. (so this monogamous-leaning person has at least one metamour!)

or alternatively, they might have one romantic partner AND a qpr, or other ways of defining relationships. (this is a factor in my own polycule!)

i made this its own point because if you're writing a straightforward triad, this is unlikely to come up in the story itself -- but it's worth thinking about how your characters develop/handle feelings outside of their partnerships.

like, is this sort of a soulmateship, 'these are the only ones for me' type deal? in which they won't fall in love with anyone else, and can be fairly certain of that?

that's pretty close to typical monogamous standards but you Can make it work. just be thoughtful with it

alternatively, can you see any of these characters falling in love Again after the happily-ever-after? and how would the triad approach it, if so? what would they all need to talk about beforehand, and what feelings would everybody have about the situation?

it's worth considering these questions even if the hypothetical will never feature in your actual canon, because knowing the answers to these questions will help you understand all of the individuals & their relationship(s) MUCH better.

i've been typing this for nearly two hours and there's a lot more i COULD say because... there's just a lot to say. i'll close out with some quick questions that you can ask yourself when developing the dyad dynamics within your triad

first, take a page and create a separate section for each individual dyad. then answer these questions for every pair:

how does each pair act when alone?

how do they act differently alone compared to when they're with their third partner?

are there any elements of this dyad (romantic, sexual, financial, domestic, etc) that these two people DON'T have with the third partner?

if so, what are they?

are there any boundaries or hard limits within this dyad that aren't shared with the third partner?

if so, what are they?

partner 3 goes out of town alone for a few weeks. what are the remaining two doing in their absence?

(doesn't have to be anything special, it's just to get a sense of how the two interact on a day-by-day basis without the third there)

what is something that each partner in the dyad admires about the other -- that they DON'T necessarily see in the third partner?

what problem do These Two Specifically need to solve in the story before their relationship will work?

how is that problem DIFFERENT from the problems being solved within the other two dyads?

doing this for ALL THREE dyads is VITAL imo. that way, you develop complex and nuanced and different relationships that all have unique dynamics.

those questions should be enough to get you started, i hope

then After you've charted the differences in relationships, you can start to jot down similarities in the overarching triad. what does one person admire in Both of their partners? what are activities that all three like to do together? what are boundaries or discussions that all three share?

but the main goal is to figure out how to Differentiate each relationship!

a polycule is only as strong as the individual relationships within it. if two people are struggling with their own relationship, adding a third person won't fix that.

(UNLESS the third person is the catalyst for those two to, like, Actually Communicate And Work Their Shit Out. i just mean that the old adage of "maybe if we just add a third-" works about as well to fix a miserable non-communicative marriage as, uh, "maybe if we have a baby-")

AND FINALLY.

if you're not sure whether your poly romance reads organically to poly people, you can hire a sensitivity reader with poly experience. if you can't afford that, you can read up on polyamorous resources like a glossary of terms & articles actually written by poly people. (and stories written by poly people!)

you can also just.... ask poly people questions, if they're open to it. i like talking about polyamory and my own relationships so you're welcome to send asks if u want, i just can't guarantee i'll answer bc my energy levels fluctuate a lot and i don't always have time.

polyamorous people are in an uphill battle for positive representation right now & so the LAST thing i want to see is authors giving up on their stories bc they're worried about getting things Wrong. well-meaning and positive stories that treat this kind of love as normal, healthy, & aspirational are So So So Needed. even if you guys end up with some funky-feeling details.

seriously, if you're monogamous then you probably don't have a full idea of Just How Nasty a lot of people can get about polyamory. i wish it DIDN'T mean so much for you guys to want to write nice stories about us, but it does mean a lot. and it means a lot that you want to do it WELL.

in conclusion. this is not a prescriptive guide, it's just a way to raise questions. and also, you all are doing FINE.

[hydnes]

People using the McDonalds Zionism thing to be fatphobic as fuck is crazy because why would you be like "Why do you need to shovel your fucking face with grease anyways" if you weren't already thinking that prior & just wanted an excuse to brazenly say it. Insane

I still stand by what I said I'm just turning off reblogs because I'm just being exposed to paragraphs of stuff that's almost completely missing the point and I'd rather people didn't boost this over actual posts about what's going on.

Please keep talking about Palestine and not spending money on corporations who fund genocide, and most importantly please remember the people you're doing this for as that's the point I was trying to make with this post.

[pillowspace]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHARLIE EMILY! <3 The person in the second drawing is the same person drawn here

[laterlavender]

He just does the darnedest things don't he

[the-ninjago-historian]

Huh??? I mean, I know they gave up their powers.

But does this mean that even though they got their powers back, they still can't go back into that state? Weird.

[ornithological]

a feral pigeon (columba livia domestica) perched on my arm, ireland

[canisalbus]

hi i hope you don't mind me asking! who are some of the artists that inspire your work and if any art movements too, which ones? i absolutely adore your work and wanna dive into the artists that inspire you because you fill me with so much inspiration 💫

Duilio Cambellotti

Paul Jouve

Norbertine Bresslern-Roth

J. C. Leyendecker

Théophile Alexandre Steinlen

Akseli Gallen-Kallela

Harry Clarke

Nico Marlet

Mike Mignola

Carl Otto Czeschka

Alphonse Mucha

Klaus Haapaniemi

Sanna Annukka

Takato Yamamoto

Ivan Bilibin

Gennady Pavlishin

Evgeni Rachev

Ludvig Hohlwein

Tove Jansson

Just to name a few that have influenced me a lot and continue to live in my head permanently! Sorry about the long post, I thought it'd be helpful if I included examples.

My favorite art movement is art nouveau, I like poster art and antique fairytale illustrations a lot, and in terms of art history I'm most interested in renaissance, early baroque and gloomy 19th century romanticism.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I started reading Dungeon Meshi last week, became instantly charmed and captivated, and blitzed through the entire manga in 4 days (and changed my profile picture about it). With that in mind, I would just like to say...

I love your dungeon meshi art so so much

CHILCHUCK!!!!!!!!

Thank you kindly! I love Dungeon Meshi a lot, so I'm happy to see so many people get into it for the first time.

CHILCHUCK!!!

[kizunagatari]

as it turns out years of drawing aliens and monsters didn't prepare me for ygo hair