#god do i have a lot of thoughts

[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.

[azulsejos]

s2 + golbetty centric episode prayer circle 🍎💝

[heartscrypt]

the web - fear of manipulation and lost control made manifest

[ruporas]

studies from the finale

[chironshorseass]

the thing is, we were never meant to sympathize with luke when he betrays percy. we aren’t meant to see his inner turmoil. we aren’t meant to see hesitancy, or regret. it’s meant to be a slap in the face. luke takes percy to the woods knowing full well what he’s about to do. in tlt kronos orders him to kill percy because he’s too volatile; kronos said so himself when percy hijacked luke’s dreams and began to figure out there were bigger things at play. the thing is, when kronos orders luke to kill percy, he doesn’t hesitate. that’s the point!!! it is essential that luke is so blinded by rage and vengeance for the gods that he will stop at nothing to get what he wants (the god’s destruction). percy accuses luke that kronos is using him, but he just retaliates that the gods do the same, and they do!!! but see, the thing is, luke’s whole point is that he’s so focused on the god’s injustices that he forgets what’s important. he goes for the “greater good” but he destroys his family, his life, in the process. by attempting to dismantle a system, he turns to another system that follows the same oppressive logic. THAT is why luke fails. THAT is why it’s so important he be blinded by rage, because it’s his inevitable, tragic end. he’s doomed by the narrative from the start. yes, we’re meant to be surprised by his betrayal because of how cold and calculating it is, but also it’s important to set the grounds for luke’s character to be this angry, vengeful boy because later on we come to understand why it is that he made those choices. we see annabeth’s side of things and percy’s side. we see luke’s side. we see many sides. we see a man who is too far gone yet comes to understand, in the end, that he’s been doing more harm than good to those he was supposed to protect (annabeth is the most obvious example). we get a complex character who won’t hesitate to kill but who also won’t hesitate to sacrifice himself so that he can save the family he has left.

the thing is, luke was supposed to be angrier in the show. percy was supposed to be angrier in the show. they’re both foils. luke is what percy could become, if percy lets his anger win. so, to change—even if it’s only slightly altering—their characters, is to change the point of the story. because luke tries to kill percy in his betrayal and later percy tries to kill luke but then percy starts to understand luke…until luke is gone and kronos is gone yet the gods don’t change but percy does. and percy’s initial anger is supposed to transform and he’s supposed to see what luke saw and the cycle continues. the thing is, it’s not even one of the worst changes the show made, yet it’s still so, so telling that they failed to see why it’s important to let your characters do bad things, to make mistakes, because that’s how a story can carry on. that’s how you give a story depth.

[turtleblogatlast]

[ cw: violence mention / death mention / ]

Will never stop thinking about how Leo, all alone in an endless void and being beaten again and again and again by the only other living thing around, still finds comfort in that space. The situation he was in was completely hopeless, and in any other circumstances he would not have escaped, at least not fast enough to save him from permanent (or even fatal) damage, be it physical or mental.

And yet, despite the bleakness of his situation, despite the agony and helplessness, all he needs is one glance at a crumbled photograph, one glance to remember his family, and that’s enough of a reason for him to smile.

Maybe that’s why his powers center around manipulating space - because no matter how much space is between them, no matter how dire his own situation may be, just the thought of his family, alive and okay, is enough to give Leo hope.

[makalyta]

Seeing Brynjolf alone at the Ragged Flagon as he brushes everyone off, stating that he's busy when he is clearly not, is... frustrating. I had to give this behavior an explanation, so I put myself in his position: Brynjolf has just handed over his life and afterlife to a Daedric Prince. Was there really no other choice to avenge the Guild, did he really have to sacrifice his freedom forever, even after death? Empty chests can be replenished with gold, a new Guildmaster can be elected, but he will never have his future back. Maybe he even starts to understand Mercer Frey's choice to betray Nocturnal. There at the tavern, drinking ale and keeping his face hidden to conceal the pain, Brynjolf realizes that there is no escape from the fate he was forced to accept.

[buglaur]

[sunnykeysmash]

Man of words

[blackbatcass]

sometimes the ghost of kelley puckett (he is still alive) haunts me. does he know. does he even know. he’s so detached from the comics community and he’s such a private guy (I RESPECT THAT WHOLEHEARTEDLY) that i really and truly do not know if this man knows how much cassandra cain means to us. does he know batgirl 2000 is heralded as the bible of dc solo books, as a lot of people’s favorite comic ever written. does he know how much we love cass. how we write essays over her character and how amazing she is and how she changed our lives. does he know how adored his writing is. does he know he wrote the best comics character introduction of all time. does he even. know.

[daylighteclipsed]

Y’all ever think about if Sora falls to darkness that inside his heart will look like the Destiny Islands falling again

[57sfinest]

calling harry a “can opener” was SUCH a good play for so many reasons i think about it every day.

in the context of his work, it makes him a tool. as many people have pointed out, including martin luiga, part of the hdb tragedy is that he simply cannot leave the force, and his superiors know that and are using it to their advantage. no matter what happens, even if harry hated every nanosecond of every bit of the work and wanted to leave, he can’t and won’t leave. they can leverage anything they want against him and then reel him back in with a facade of kindness when they “allow” him to keep his job, as long as he does what they want him to. the 41st knows he has this inexplicable talent with people and they use him for it. he’s a cop: that talent can be used in so many awful ways, to push so many different agendas. and they won’t even be his own. a can opener has no particular desire to open a can, aside from maybe the satisfaction of fulfilling a purpose. a can opener has no agency, it’s just a tool for someone else to use to get what they want. and he’s learned to be okay with being used as long as it means he gets to stay. his complacency with this system makes him guilty even if he’s also being harmed by it.

but in the context of his personal life you kind of... flip it. the people around him are going to be opened up whether they want to be or not, and it’s terrible for his relationships. it’s shown that the questions, the prying- the can-opening- it’s become inextricable from who he is as a person. it’s like he doesn’t know how else to communicate, except it’s hardly communication when you’re just ripping people open. he’s invasive as all hell, although whether he means to be is debatable. he’s the kind of person that wants to take things apart to see what makes them tick. he dissects people, but really that’s too delicate of a word for what he does; if he doesn’t get what he wants right up front, he’ll abandon all subtlety and go for brute force. if he can’t get your screws loose he’ll just smash you on the ground and pick through your pieces until he’s satisfied, and if what he did to you isn’t fixable? oh well, there are other cans to open. 

and he’ll use it for personal gain: we already know he is (was?) manipulative. once he knows how you operate, he knows how to make you keep him. he can yell or he can cry; he can threaten you or he can threaten himself; he can be completely suffocating or he can withdraw completely; he can be an incorrigible liar or brutally honest; he can present himself as a threat or a joke or a talent. he’s a chimera- that’s why he’s got this inexplicable magnetism, even when people know they shouldn’t like or trust him. fidelity of character means nothing to him. he’ll be whatever he needs to be as long as it gets him what he wants. the can-opening is just his way in.

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

quotes from alex turner's favourite authors that make me want to put my face through a wall:

"although i have never been an actor in the strict sense of the word, i have nevertheless, in real life, always carried about with me a small folding theatre" - vladimir nabokov, despair

"there is a terrible emptiness in me, an indifference that hurts," - albert camus

"there is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself" - raymond chandler

"at eight, he had once told his mother that he wanted to paint air" - vladimir nabokov

"no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge" - joseph conrad

"everything i've ever let go of has claw marks on it" - david foster wallace

"we're all lonely for something we don't know we're lonely for. how else to explain the curious feeling that goes around feeling like missing somebody we've never even met?" - david foster wallace

"i turn over a new leaf every day, but the blots show through" - keith waterhouse

"the truth will set you free. but not until it's finished with you" - david foster wallace

"curiosity is insubordination in its purest form" - vladimir nabokov

"i'm me and nobody else; and whatever people think i am or say i am, that's what i'm not, because they don't know a bloody thing about me" - alan sillitoe

"we live as we dream; alone” - joseph conrad

"i liked, as i like still, to make words look self-conscious and foolish, to bind them by mock marriage of a pun, to turn them inside out, to come upon them unwares" - vladimir nabokov, despair

"whatever you get paid attention to for is never what you think is most important about yourself" - david foster wallace

"i continued to stir my tea long after it had done all it could with the milk” - vladimir nabokov, despair

"i remained too much inside my head and ended up losing my mind" - edgar allan poe

"all the information i have about myself is from forged documents" - vladimir nabokov, despair

"how odd i can have all this inside me and to you its just words" - david foster wallace

"you will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. you will never live if you're looking for the meaning of life" - albert camus

[crow-caller]

New video... soon!

Yes, I'm trying out a LIVE PREMIERE for this one folks!

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17

6.30PM GMT

PRECIOUS BLOOD AT LAST.

These books really took their toll on me and I'm extremely excited for my review to finally be going up. Three hip teen girls fall in good christian love with saint sebastion reborn and commit incredible acts of violence, primarily against the homeless.

This YA book series was published in 2013 by one of the Big Five publishers and is extremely mainstream published for WHAT it is (it also warrants like, my longest every content warning). It's balls to the wall unbelievable and a wild ride. I'll be there in chat and on discord after assuming I haven't sunk into the earth.

List of content warnings for the upcoming vid under the cut, you can also message me to enquire further

Yeah. These books have, um, everything in them.

Primarily, it's going to involve a lot of anti-medication, anti-therapy talk as well as quite graphic gore for a. Tween catholic YA novel. I don't arrange these based on prominence, only that the topic comes up- it's very hard to add weight to what is 'worse' most of the time.

[river-of-wine]

If it’s meant to be, then it will be

[mikayesha]

hii just wanna say ur feenie and maya drawings are top tier amazing i love them they are so the siblings ever

Thank you so muchTvT! I'm happy that a lot of people are enjoying my recent narumayo doodles. Also very true,, Phoenix having nonexistent parents and Maya having complicated family issues make it that they are just there for each other's company, paving their way to life and facing whatever obstacles they have on the way.