#im going to read fics from the other eeee ship

[asukaskerian]

youve totally converted me to grimmichihime and im really tempted to embark on a big fic about it but ive never written polyamory before and im really daunted !! any tips on writing poly and like how you see the dynamic of those three specifically?

eeee! :D :D :D write it write it write it!

ok OK ok hmmmmm ADVICE. i’m kinda scattered today so i’m gonna try to write all the things but i probably will not manage even most things.

general poly things:

-Closed triangle dynamics where all three love the other two are actually pretty rare and difficult irl! People rarely line up so nicely. what happens more often is a person has two boyfriends (romantic partnerships), one of those boyfriends has a wife (main/primary relationship) and three lovers (secondary relationships) where it’s more flirty and sexual and fun and less with the “help me while i grieve my dead mom”,  two of those lovers are also each other’s lovers. Or two committed couples are wife-swapping swingers, or a het couple has a “same sex partners are ok but not opposite sex” or vice versa, etc etc, there’s lots of flavors of poly and open relationships.

Fandom-wise it sounds like you’re writing the closed triad OT3 so let’s go with that though.

–Every person is different so every relationship with a single twosome has a different dynamic. Adding a third person means you now have AB, BC, AC and ABC dynamics to handle. What makes a poly ship fun is that those people are different and handle everything differently.

In other words, c h a o s.

–Every person has different insecurities (What makes them feel hurt, disregarded, disrespected?) and different relationship needs. (How do they ask for them, how do they react when they’re not met, how much compromise are they willing to deal with?) Some of those needs will conflict, or be assumed to conflict. Sometimes the way to make a person feel better will make another feel worse?! Well damn. Negotiating will HAVE to happen in some way.

Things being too easy are kinda boring to read though, so that’s fine in a fic. XD It kinda makes its own plot tbh.

–Some people don’t have a sense of jealousy at all and are just happy that the person/people they love are also happy. Some are possessive but not jealous (do whoever you want/build the outside attachments you want so long as at the end of the day you’re mine). Some are jealous but willing to deal with their own feelings because the payoff is worth the twinges. Some aren’t jealous but think they should be and only feel awkward and confused and maybe sad because they’re turning it inwards and never examinated it. etc etc.

I’m sure there’s more but i cannot brain. Anyway let’s pull up the grimmichihime for examples.

* Dynamics:

-Grimmjow/Ichigo: RIVALS who understand each other uncomfortably well in the dark corners of their psyche but keep butting heads. They just want the other one to respect them damn it. But they have very different contexts so like, are they still speaking the same language when they’re not speaking with blades?

-Ichigo/Orihime: Let me tenderly protect your sensitive places while I blush in silence while being too shy to make a move for like actual years. Also both of them think the other one is too good for them. Haa, kids. XD A very sweet and innocent First Romance vibe.

-Grimmjow/Orihime: this one has the least positive canon material, so you’ve got to imagine for yourself how the two of them would interact when they’re not under pressure. If Grimmjow isn’t fighting for survival/respect does he still trample all over her? If Orihime isn’t held hostage by crazy assholes threatening the lives of everyone she holds dear does she still flinch and grit her teeth in terrified resolve from his more volatile moments? Ok but do they connect? How? (It could easily have a dynamic like one of those bodice rippers where the genteel lady is kidnapped by a pirate and at the end of the trip he’s bending over backwards for her favor tbh XD)

-Third person reacting to the other two: —How does Orihime handle the constant barbs and physical jostling between Ichigo and Grimmjow? She doesn’t like physical violence, does she learn to see it as boys roughhousing or do they learn not to raise their voices too harshly around her? —How does Ichigo’s overprotective ass handle Grimmjow being insensitive or crude to her? Does she have to tell Ichigo it’s ok and she can handle it? (Does Grimmjow somehow develop Some Tact?) —Does Grimmjow have a single idea how to deal with their quiet gentleness? Cuddle time? What the fuck is a love language. Does not getting it bother him and make him hostile because he feels disconnected from them?

-What do they do when it’s all three of them at once? How do they hang out? Is there something they can all do together and how important is it to them, or are they okay with limiting that to have more one-on-one time instead? How do they handle time-sharing issues?

*Insecurities & jealousy :

-Is Grimmjow possessive and over what? Sex, time, training, angry moments? Do you headcanon him as sleeping around without any emotions attached or as avoiding people? Has he ever dated/been in a closed romantic partnership before? Can he even recognize the signs? How does he handle being from literally another planet from two of his partners and being stared at in confusion and/or horror while they bond over Not Getting Him and him Not Getting Them? Does he feel like a curiosity or a sex toy to spice up the Real Partnership ™ ?

-How does Ichigo handle the “yeah you’re dating two people and one of them is the girl everyone ships you with, and the other one is a guy everyone wonders wtf about” from the outside? How does he deal with endangering Orihime’s heart? (like, what if she gets attached and Grimmjow predictably breaks her heart in a thousand pieces and it’s Ichigo’s fault for allowing it to happen? What if he’s nasty in bed. What if he doesn’t flush.) Does Ichigo figure out/remember that he’s dating TWO people and Grimmjow might deny to hell and back he has feelings that can be hurt but does, in fact, have feelings that can be hurt, and now it’s Ichigo’s fault for coddling Orihime over him. Does he feel insecure over Grimmjow’s experience or the wild and spontaneous things he does with Orihime and the way they can laugh without it turning into a competition?

-Orihime is canonly insecure over what other people can bring Ichigo that she can’t, and she has a massive insecurity about not being able to protect Ichigo/following him on the battlefield. She’s been training like mad to catch up, and by the end of canon she’s quite happy for having been acknowledged by Ichigo on that point, but when faced with a dude who doesn’t feel sick every time he has to raise his fists and has reflexes like greased lightning, does she still feel like she contributes equally or does her self-doubt rear its head up again? Does it also spread out to things like idk, she can’t fully satisfy Ichigo sexually and he’s always going to be missing something if he’s with just her? Is she ever going to feel like Grimmjow, who doesn’t open up easily, only tolerates her because Ichigo’s the one he really wants, and sure he will casually and easily chat with her but that’s because he doesn’t care about her approval as much?

How do they notice these feelings, run from them, confront them, fix them, etc etc etc? Some are gonna be fixed super easily, some are gonna be non-issues depending on the context of your plot, and some of them are probably gonna make for fun plot, and of course there’s probably a dozen more other angles you could go with.

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Be wary when you write a threesome not to make one of the characters the support who’s there to facilitate the “more interesting” pairing and doesn’t really get any emotional fulfillment from it. It’s perfectly fine to write, say, a voyeur who facilitates a sex scene with their lover and some other guy and the camera is mostly on the porn, but they have to be present in the fic as more than the helper. Like the sassy friend couple or The Sam in MCU fics who’s only there to get the main pairing to hook up.

It’s ok if not all three characters have as much presence and impact on the plot because perfectly equal screentime is a pipe dream, but all three should still have stakes in the plot and derive satisfaction from the end result. Otherwise they’ll feel superfluous in their own damn plot, and then it fails at being a good OT3.

… i… have a lot of cranky opinions about good OT3s from my naruto days tbh. From “did you put sakura in your fave yaoi just so you don’t look sexist but she’s not even doing anything eeewww a pussy” to “whoa someone is self inserting p hard today” to “i love this ot3 except for this pairing it contains that i happen to have founded the anti-fanclub for but i can totally handle THAT dynamic fairly and without bashing i swear (yuuuuck)”. but that’s about ten years back and i haven’t been writing a lot of OT3 since so i haven’t written meta in just about that long. my bad if it’s rambly and i’m missing something obvious. XD; i hope this helps a bit!