#bc we all know the answer!

[zombinarys]

all i’m gonna say is that y’all need to ask yourselves if you could even look a man who enjoys that kind of media in the eye without throwing up in your mouth if he was just a rando down your road

[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.

[claraoswalds]

The sky's a burnt orange, with the Citadel enclosed in a mighty glass dome, shining under the twin suns. Beyond that, the mountains go on forever. Slopes of deep red grass, capped with snow.

The Legend of Ruby Sunday // The Sound of Drums

[baekuras]

I am still not over the wheel of time cancellation news bc if a critically acclaimed show bringing in over 300million and only getting better per season, is well liked by both fans and critics and stayed in at least the top 10 in MULTIPLE countries during and even after it's run-what hope if there for anything else?

[ineed-to-sleep]

I forgot about how killing eve's writing just starts getting progressively worse the more season 3 goes on. Like girl what happened to my show.......... my characters......... what did they DO to villanelle...................... and where is EVE

[kabukeo]

colored this thing for fun

[determunition]

say that someone also wrote a pre-ascension Click Clack fic, and they wanted to use the name Clarence Clerical (cause they think it's awesome), would you blow them up with hammers or is it chill?

gosh i'm flattered my silly click clack name is beloved enough to warrant such a question! i think like, at the most it'd be cool to get a shout-out if anyone planned on using clarence's specific characterization? but honestly either way i'm chill, go wild; it's a huge compliment to have my silly headcanons enjoyed to the degree that other folks want to incorporate them into their own stuff :>

[muchmossymess]

This fandom shit is easy

[httpiastri]

Can we talk about paul and his bare backk pleaaase

i fear that i have watched this video too many times to be considered sane….. (me? insane for him?? never)

like obvs we've gotten paul muscular back content before but i swear to godddd this did something special to me…. idk if you know but back muscles (esp upper back) are actually my favorite thing and the fact that he looks like this is just so 🫠🫠 the way they move and contract when he moves? i cant? anD WHY ARE HIS LATS SO BIG LIKEEE I WAS THINKING THEYRE ALRIGHT BUT THEN THE END OF THE VID COMES AND I SEE THE FULL LENGTH WND STRENGTH OF THEM AND I JUST ?? HOW?!?!? 😓😓😓 buttt how is it fair that i cant feel his muscles under my hands? why am i not allowed to draw along the lines with my fingers? press a few fleeting kisses on them maybe???

[mohntilyet]

Personal headcanon about the "you picked the wrong dellamorte" line, I don't think illario actually likes rook outside the context of them being someone close to lucanis. Like rook on their own isn't much to him, but when they meet it's yet another person talking about his cousin (why isn't he good enough for whatever job they're hiring for?) and on top of that they somehow bring him back from the dead (another whole can of worms for illario). Now he starts turning on the charm, but whether he's actually interested or this is just one more thing his cousin has that he doesn't and it gets under his skin, who knows. Either way, rook ignores illario, the guy who lives off his charm, and is instead interested in the guy who's never even dated before and thinks giving someone a knife is how to flirt. Infuriating

NO THANK YOU !! i am genuinely sorry if i have ever implied illario is into rook like i see some takes about it and unless it like ties into your rook's personal backstory i don't seriously think he's romantically jealous. at all. my enjoyment of that line stems from illario's pathological need to make it about himself and not see his strengths but what lucanis has, and therefore what he doesn't. he's annoyed enough to try and goad you in the middle of a fight about the 'wrong' dellamorte and completely blind to the fact that the venatori are at best, a stupid fucking alliance, and at worst, a cult that will devour the crows from the inside out and illario would have been the one to give them the keys. he sees lucanis make allies, needs his own, and instead of charming the other talons/houses as he should, he (probably spitefully) picks the venatori. or maybe he just thought it would be easier. ugh he makes me want to telekenetically throw him around

[riverin-stories]

i'm back from hiatus here 1 million years later to say: that okami sequel announcement had me in shambles

[feelbokkie]

what would you do if you found out one of the guys saw your account?? 👀

You guys will witness a very public crash out probably

actually ykw, if any of them see my account they better head over to my navigation and send me enough money on ko-fi to upgrade mine and my best friend’s tickets to vip to pay for the damage this will bring to my mental health

[nouverx]

thank you for drawing so much radiorose! i also have terrible radiorose brainrot and your art keeps me alive, it's so cute ;_;

T-t-thank you ily

[muchmossymess]

uh oh guys, hot take alert:

i think revali may have invented hand held aerial archery HEAR ME OUT- (this is a long one boys)

okay. evidence one: why the fuck would a rito shoot like that. like, it makes nearly zero sense, it would be such a hindrance to their flight and their main stake is that they can be higher than you can shoot whilst still pinging you... which revali has overcome with his gale

evidence two: tulin and the concept arts. obviously rito style archery would be held in their talons. before totk came out idk if anyone had really thought about it too much, but the developers had, as you can see in concept art (from the creating a champion book). and like, its logical, powerful, and allows for peak maneuverability. also, when in flight revali (and teba) holds his bow in his talons before switching to his wings. surely its easier to keep it in your wing (obvi ignoring the effects to flight but hes doing that anyway firing the damn thing) rather than switch back and forth- unless you were taught that way, because why would you hold it elsewhere, you need it in your talons to shoot.

evidence three: we dont see any other rito do it (...kind of). throughout botw and totk, we never see another rito flying with a bow in their hands. in totk, its mostly tulin, who holds it in his talons, but in botw the big one is teba. during the medoh quest, he actually gives *link* his bow, and therefore does no shooting in the sky. teba and harth had both tried to take on medoh before, but we never see this, and while they holds their bows in their hands *on the ground,* we dont see it.

...except for aoc (uh, spoilers?). there are two times we see a rito other than revali hold their bow in their hand for aerial archery. but it is not with any rito soldiers, either during cutscenes (the bows are only on their backs) or gameplay (they swoop down, and then hand hold bows on ground. they arent seen flying at all but thats prolly for the same reasons as botw: its very hard to code that (and so they write the lore around that fact)). the first time we actually see another rito do this, we dont see it. Its teba, as he comes thru the portal, but all we see is the arrow shot, and then him freeze frame with the bow in one wing. we dont see the bow in his hand for the rest of the fight. the second time we actually see him fighting like this, it *is* in the air, but its noticeably different to revali.

hes a lot slower, it clearly takes a LOT more effort to shoot the bow, and he only pulls off one arrow at a time. its canon that revalis bow is heavier/harder to draw, and he manages to effortlessly stream arrows whilst fucking floating midair. i think teba, forever a revali fanboy, heard of how the champion mastered his own style of archery and sought to teach himself, but lacked one key thing: revalis mastery of wind.

evidence three point five: revali could easily use his powers to hold him in the air longer/slow his descent long enough for him to fire his shots. it makes sense, really. if he can use his gale to propel him, he can sit on the updraft for a hot sec, or even curve the path to carry him along while he lines up the shot. this would mean he wouldnt need to flap as much as other rito, who would obviously need to keep flying

evidence four: revalis fighting style and his needs. revali works with non rito, obviously. he needs to be able to communicate with them on the battlefield, and they wont understand the muffled chirps if he holds his string in his beak, so he needs his mouth free to speak hylian. also, revalis main tactic is fly up with gale, shoot, fall, either shoot more or use velocity and weight to knock around opponents, and then fly back up. he often needs both feet planted firmly on the ground to get a good hold of his gale, something that is harder to do if you have a bow in the way.

also, take for example the kick he delivers link in their fight (aoc). that would possibly damage the bow, or give the opponent a chance to grab his weapon, if he held it in his talons. and to switch from feet to back is a risky maneuver during freefall, and could lose precious seconds, and then when you get back in the air you need to get it off your back again. its much easier to keep the bow loosely in your wing the whole time, meaning your free to attack melee, land and rise all while not wasting a single moment getting your next shot lined up.

so yeah, i think the rito used the talon grip for aerial archery, and would often use the hand held method on the ground for a variety of reasons (more powerful shots?, easier in some situations like hunting), but revali was perhaps the first to use hand held aerial, another reason he was one of the greatest archers ever.

[meimeimeirin]

uve seen muzzle wrio, i give you this

salivating..... i mean what. i mean.