#I'm not answering it but. GOD

[fitzselfships]

Cool great as if everything couldn't get more stressful I just found out the first ask I have received in a while is a pr//oshipper complaining about me not wanting them to interact with me awesome 👍

[chalkrub]

do you think it’s a friendly wolf

[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.

[knifearo]

ultimately when it comes to shipping and fandom space treatment of aspec characters i just don't accept "aro/ace people can still date/have sex" as an answer from nonaspecs. like yeah. mhm. okay. now i think we both know that you're not saying that out of real interest in the diversity of aspec experiences. so you can turn in your seventeen-page essay on why and how you plan to examine this character's aspec identity within the context of a romantic or sexual relationship complete with evidence from canon and peer reviews from multiple aspec people within the next week or i'm putting you in the pit from the edgar allen poe story

[tofixtheshadows]

Hello, op! While I do find your reading of Kabru’s self sacrifice and how little he eats really good, im curious why you consider him the deuteragonist? He is a foil to the protagonist yes, but still a supporting character.

I think its pretty clear Marcille is the second most important character in DM, and her story has much more weight than Kabru’s.

Hello! I've mentioned this on my blog before, but I actually consider Marcille and Kabru to both be deuteragonists to Laios's protagonist. I just wasn't talking about Marcille in that post.

Technically this term is meant to be used in playwriting, and the Greek tradition at that, so I'm playing a little loosey goosey with semantics and my argument would sound different if I were writing an academic paper. But this is tumblr dot edu and I'm trying to get a point across on my little blog, and part of the idea of a deuteragonist is that they support the protagonist. "Secondary main character who has their own importance in the narrative while bolstering the protagonist" works well enough for my purposes.

I think Marcille and Kabru are both playing specific and complementary roles to Laios. Marcille is at his side, facilitating the A plot: namely, "save Falin", which requires Marcille's magic, and then Marcille's method of resurrection ropes Thistle in, so the continuation of "save Falin" necessitates confronting the Dungeon Lord and conquering the dungeon (the B plot).

Kabru only intersects with Laios, but he is tied from the beginning to the B plot- and with dragging basically everyone else into it. Actually, the fact that he brings in this extremely loaded B plot despite only having brief face time with the protagonist should be seen as significant. In a sense, Kabru represents the surface world and all its concerns.

Before I talk about that more, I want to continue with the complementary line of thinking and point out that Kabru and Marcille have very similar background motivations.

Laios wants to save his sister first and foremost, and it's only along the way that he starts to consider what he'd do with the responsibility of Dungeon Lord. Coming to the conclusion that he wants to create a home for disparate peoples to live in harmony has connective tissue to both Kabru and Marcille's desires.

Marcille is the only one in their party who starts out with a greater motivation other than saving Falin (Izutsumi is a special case, but she's ultimately along for the ride), one that she keeps hidden for a long time. Because she is a mage, and because she is driven by a very personal tragedy (my dad died; I am terrified of outliving everyone), she is looking for a miracle to bring the different races closer together.

Kabru comes from a background of personal tragedy as well, but it's also a far greater, more political tragedy than just the death of a parent. It is not a coincidence that Kabru is a brown boy from an exploited region that suffered despite and because of military intervention from a first-world power, nor that he was adopted by a white woman whose coddling/dehumanization of him represents the paternalistic oversight of these world powers.

Thus, Kabru's motivations are both personal and political: if they, the short-lived races, can finally access the secrets of the dungeons, then not only can they have agency in stopping tragedies like Utaya's, but it will also give them a greater power of self-determination.

Marcille and Kabru have both correctly identified and set themselves against a problem that is greater than saving the life of one girl, greater even than sealing this one dungeon.

Despite Marcille's hopes, there is no grand magic solution to this. Only small, slow, backbreaking, ordinary solutions, the kind you labor over in kitchens and bedrooms and throne rooms and meeting houses and hearths and negotiation tables. The kind you run a kingdom with.

There is a reason why Dungeon Meshi ends with Marcille and Kabru on either side of Laios's throne.

Okay: back to Kabru (under the cut).

I've talked about this a little before, but I'll reiterate here: I consider Kabru to be the counterweight to the back half of the story. In a very literal sense too, as he pulls the focus up from the depths to the surface not once, but twice. Dungeon Meshi builds itself on the premise that the traditional "dungeon" must function as an actual ecosystem, and the monsters in it are biological actors in that ecosystem and not merely magical obstacles independent of their environment. The first couple dozen chapters are focused on this. Like regular animals, monsters have needs and instincts and unique behaviors, and they can be killed and consumed as part of a food chain.

And then Kabru comes along and he reminds us that humans are also part of their own special ecosystem, with their own needs and instincts and unique behaviors, and that beyond the biological drive of the literal food chain there are also complex social issues influencing these behaviors (like capitalism). Tansu's visit with the governor introduced us to these ideas, but Kabru is the one who carries them.

The way he and his party break down Laios's party also serves an important function. I think most readers are so busy being shocked that Kabru is "so wrong" about our goofy boy Laios that they don't realize that he isn't actually wrong about anything (he's only missing the context of what drives Laios, which he admits to and is part of the reason why he pursues him). We've gotten only Laios's view of things so far, and Laios is pretty tunnel-visioned. The narrative, through Kabru, is telling the reader this is how our protagonist actually comes across to his community.

We like Laios because we are following his story from his inner circle. We know he's naive and struggles with people but that he has a good heart and is ultimately just a big silly guy who won't harm anybody if he can help it. But we only know that because we're seeing him with his inner circle, in his environment. Outside of the dungeon, Laios is anti-social to the point of rudeness; he misreads situations and misjudges people, he acts in ways that cause friction, and he accidentally aligns himself with people who make his whole enterprise look suspicious: a prominent half-foot community leader, a mysterious foreigner literally surrounded by spies, the disgraced daughter of a criminal who now has to shoulder the burden of her father's reputation, and an elf in a land where there are no elves. And they seem to be very good at what they're doing. Yet this whole time, Laios acts as if he doesn't care about profit or taking the kingdom, the only logical reasons why anyone on the Island would gather up such a party and throw themselves into this death pit day after day.

Yeah of course Kabru finds this suspicious and interesting. Of course people don't know what to make of Laios. This all reiterates the question that Zon the orc already raised: What will you do, Laios, if you defeat the Mad Mage? If you gain control of all of this? Can you be a leader? Laios himself doesn't know yet.

This is all necessary context for our protagonist and the journey he has to go on, and it's fittingly brought up by the most socially adept character, who is so concerned with human ecosystems and the bigger picture of the dungeon. There is a reason why Kabru, as a character, is connected to large webs of people as he moves throughout the narrative: his own party, Toshiro's party, the Canaries, the denizens of the first floor of the dungeon.

Kabru is responsible for bringing Toshiro down to Laios's party. Toshiro is not a big mover and shaker in the story itself, but his confrontation with Laios is a huge part of Laios's character arc. His detour down to the lower levels also allows Izutsumi to escape and join Laios's party later.

We also have this very important moment:

It shows the first inkling- to the audience, to Kabru, and to Laios himself- that Laios is willing to do a painful, necessary thing to protect other people, that he won't just allow them to become collateral for his sister/monsters. That he can listen, and that he can assess a situation beyond his personal feelings. Again, fittingly, big-picture-thinker Kabru is the catalyst for this.

And then, not content to leave him as merely a device for Laios's character growth, the focus slingshots back up to the surface, and we follow Kabru.

The Canaries were going to go into the dungeon soon anyway, and they were always going to stir up the crowd in order to lure Thistle to them. Unless Thistle had given up right then and managed to slip away, the story could have very easily ended here:

Falin, immobilized and surrounded by Canaries, would have certainly been killed, and there would have been no way to ever resurrect her. Thistle would have been neutralized. The dungeon would have been taken by the elves, and anyone they could get their hands on would have been imprisoned at best. And maybe the dungeon would have been managed safely ... or maybe something would have gone wrong, and more lives would have been lost. Remember: the Canaries arrived in Utaya one year before the tragedy.

This is a huge moment that changes Laios's life forever, and he doesn't even know it. Kabru single-handedly keeps the story on course by sabotaging the Canaries, and he does it not just for Laios's sake, but for everyone's sake. For his friends and companions in the dungeon and everyone else outside it. Laios is a part of his motivation, a key player in Kabru's hopes, but Kabru has his own desires, his own agenda. He's trying to change the world. In a way, he succeeds. And while the Canaries might wish it were otherwise, as an entity in the narrative they are always anchored to Kabru's character. The two forces collide because of Kabru. The unsealing of the Winged Lion and Marcille's emergency ascension to Dungeon Lord happen indirectly because of Kabru.

While I have talked so much already that I don't want to give a detailed breakdown of it, I do want to mention Kabru's unique interiority as a character. That is to say: we see the inside of Kabru's head more than anyone else. Every character in the main ensemble gets their own moments of inner monologues or fifteen minutes in the limelight, but for Kabru, it's constant. He's always thinking, talking, narrating. His POV chapters always stand out for how first-person they feel compared to most others.

Notably, the only other character I could compare that to is Marcille, specifically during the dungeon rabbit debacle and her ascension afterward, which is when she really takes center stage as a character.

I hope I've explained my reasoning without becoming too insufferable.

To cap off my thoughts with a nod to my original post, I cannot stress enough how significant it is, thematically, that Kabru's relationship with food is the inverse of Laios's. It isn't just that Laios is the main character in a story about cooking monsters and Kabru happens to be his monster-hating foil. The artistic choice to deny the reader the visual of this character ever enjoying food, and only ever putting it in his mouth in situations where it hurts him, in a manga that gives so much attention to eating and the pleasures of meals, cannot be understated.

[canisalbus]

There’s just smth about dogs and Christianity as a whole. Like, the devotion, loyalty and reverence that is demanded only can be shown by dogs imo

.

[yashley]

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Don't Lose Your Head.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[raggedy-spaceman]

S02E03 I Know Where I'm Going

They are married your honour. It's just that they're both too stupid to realize it yet. We'll get there.

[boringa55binch]

I had this cute thought in my head, basically Gregory’s getting ready for bed but recently he’s been having trouble sleeping, so Vanessa decides to tell him a story she made up, when she ends the story she gives Gregory a forehead kiss, Gregory a bit shocked at first then says he loves Vanessa and she says she loves him too, meanwhile Freddy is just listening and is so heart melted.

Bedtime Story

i got a teensy bit carried away;; I wanted to make something from the scenario you gave, but have it be closer to my characterization of them. hope it's okay!

wonder what Freddy wanted to tell her...

[omaano]

If you're still taking requests on the polyam drawing thing, D2 with Padme/Rex/Anakin?? (with Rex in the middle getting smoochies 😚🙏💖)

If you're not, then just thank you for sharing I'm enjoying seeing the cute poly/platonic art! 😊

Changed to E3 for a pose, and I’d turned it super self indulgent (pretty purple background for me yay!☺️) I hope you will like it too! Thanks for asking!💕

I really like this look for Padme (mostly because of her beautiful hair), and I also wanted to deck Rex out in something pretty too. It’s a nice pink tinted dream :3

Polyam/platonic poses for these sketches

[glassedplanets]

a few months ago giffy was like "haha hear me out, what if tattoo au" and then we blacked out and talked about nothing else for like three weeks

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

why are people so against oliver and ryan talking about buddie, don't we want this, don't we want buddie to be canon? i'm sorry are we rooting for buck to end up with tommy or something, like I don't understand why so many people are saying stop asking them about buddie?

If we want Buddie then shouldn't we be asking buddie questions? I mean I'm so sorry but I'm just very confused, shouldn't we be happy that buddie is getting this much press and love? Why are we against it?

Okay, this is going to be a long one.

There are a few reasons why people are concerned about publications teasing Buddie happening and using the ship name and asking Oliver and Ryan about the ship. I'll try to be as concise as possible.

I would like to note, I'm not going to answer a bunch of questions about this. Other people have answered similar questions plenty of times, if you take a bit to look around 911blr. I'm sure @catdadeddie has gone into this a few times.

However, I understand that we are getting a lot of new fans this season, and so I want to try and explain comprehensively for those who haven't been around. I hope this covers everything.

Whenever a ship is between two people of the same gender as opposed to two people of the opposite gender (I know, I know, but we can't get into the gender spectrum right now just play along with me), everyone involved has to be very, very careful when it comes to talking about that ship ahead of said ship going canon.

It is very easy to slip into something called "queerbaiting." I'm assuming that you and most people online and in fandom by now have heard of this term but just in case: queerbaiting is when a show acts like a queer ship might happen in marketing and promotion in order to draw in a queer audience.

Historically, this was done by having a main character played by a woman have a romantic thing with another woman (flirting, even kissing!) who was a guest star, hinting at the main character's bisexuality/queerness, only for that guest star to never come back and for the show to act like it had never happened. This was done during something called, IIRC, "sweeps week" which was basically an important week for TV viewer ratings in the 90s. It was a way to boost your numbers by drawing in queer viewers with the promise of actual queer rep that then wasn't realized. It's a marketing tactic.

Nowadays the nature of queerbaiting has changed a bit. It's an overused term that frankly people love to (mis)use whenever a ship of theirs doesn't go canon and a show dares to do things like having two people (like say Ryan and Oliver) who play the two halves of the ship do an interview together (whether you ship Buddie or not, they are close friends, and it makes sense that they'd do a few interviews together - that is not queerbaiting). A good example of real queerbaiting is Rizzoli & Isles which, among other things, took out billboards and magazine spreads showing the characters (two women) in suggestively sexual and romantic positions and with slogans hinting that the two had more than just friendship together, then never, ever delivered on it and in fact laughed at the idea of the characters being gay for each other.

(I WAS THERE, GANDALF!!!)

Because of this unfortunate treatment of queer audiences and the (historic) dearth of actual queer characters and queer ships going canon (it's getting better but still), networks, showrunners, and so on have to be very careful when, say, they want to make a queer ship canon.

Look at how ABC handled Chenford, a popular ship in their show The Rookie. Chenford was not a planned ship - the fans adored the chemistry between the two characters (Lucy Chen and Tim Bradford), the writers liked the idea and decided to lean into it, ABC gave the go-ahead, and the ship officially got together and went canon last season. ABC heavily promoted Chenford and the ship and made a lot of jokes about it in the last couple of seasons leading into the ship going canon, using the ship heavily in their marketing.

ABC cannot necessarily do that with Buddie, because even if Buddie is going canon, until that happens, they could get accused of queerbaiting. There's a much bigger minefield to navigate because of this historic misuse of queer audiences and queer characters.

So whenever journalists and publications use a popular non-canonical queer ship name for clicks and fandom interest, if that ship doesn't immediately go canon or if the network/showrunner/etc doesn't say "yeah they're totally gonna kiss! with tongue!" people accuse the show of queerbaiting. This is unfair to the show for two reasons: one, the network is not going to bother sending "shut the fuck up" letters to every single damn publication out there for using a ship name in their headline and talking about a ship - they'll be accused of homophobia and it draws even MORE attention to the issue re: the Barbra Streisand effect (look it up); and two, the people involved in the show are NOT going to spoil the anticipation and surprise by admitting ANY ship is going to go canon before it does.

This is simple marketing - the movie trailer doesn't (or shouldn't, anyway) show you the ending of the movie or everything that happens in it. TV shows want you to tune in every week and speculate and guess. They're not gonna spoil a ship ahead of time.

This means that when journalists and articles pull this shit, they're putting the showrunner, the writers, the actors doing interviews, and the network in a bad situation that they can't really do anything about. Not without causing more mess.

So that's reason number one why a lot of us are annoyed: by yelling about Buddie, these articles and journalists are setting the cast and crew we love up to get yelled at for queerbaiting if Buddie doesn't immediately happen, and there's nothing the cast and crew can do about it, and it's all so the journalists and articles can use us, the fandom, for clicks. So we're also kinda getting used here, and it doesn't feel great.

The second reason we're annoyed about Buddie questions is that it's being asked of the actors who, nine times out of ten, have ZERO CONTROL OVER THE STORYLINES.

Now, there are exceptions. Jennifer Love Hewitt, who plays Maddie, has pushed back on a couple storylines that were given to her and has therefore had a strong hand in shaping Maddie's character. One infamous (in a positive way) example is that Maddie and Eddie were supposed to be an endgame couple. JLH, however, immediately loved the character of Chimney and clicked with Chim's actor Kenneth Choi, so she asked if Maddie could get with Chim instead, feeling he'd be a better fit for her character. And lo, both the beautiful ship Madney and the insanity that is Buddie shipping was born because Buck ended up stepping into that co-parenting-Chris role that Maddie obviously would've originally filled.

However, it should be noted that JLH was an established star before coming onto 9-1-1, and her husband is friends with Tim the showrunner. I would argue that the only other two actors who have any power on their storylines are Peter and Angela, the latter because she can do whatever she wants forever, and the former because (like Angela) he is an executive producer on the show.

It's not that actors never ever get to have a say ever, but the writers, showrunner, and network have much more power. They create the storylines, they make the decisions. Not actors. So when the actors are repeatedly asked about a ship, they're put in an awkward position where they might not even know the full storyline for their character that season and now they need to answer in a way that doesn't reveal any information they do know, but also doesn't insult shippers or dash their hopes. This is a double minefield for queer ships because, again: historic insults to queer fans and characters, nobody wants to be offensive.

The third reason is that this fandom has, historically, treated Tim, Oliver, and others like absolute dogshit over Buddie not going canon. Oliver's left Twitter and taken big social media breaks because of how he was yelled at online. It's not cool, guys. Vent all you want but directing it at the cast and crew isn't okay and maybe if it was just you talking sternly that would be fine (maybe) but when it's dozens of people? It's bullying. Full stop.

Every single time Buddie has not gone canon instantly, the actors and others have gotten verbally abused on social media. Every time the actors have been asked about Buddie and not said "ohmygod yes I want it to happen so bad" (they are not allowed to say this because it might create false hope because again: historical queerbaiting) they've gotten yelled at. We are tired of the actors getting yelled at over something over which they have no control.

The fourth reason is that Oliver, especially, has gotten asked about Buddie a LOT. A lot. The poor man is very tired. He's been cornered about Buddie and asked about it aggressively by certain journalists (one journalist, Max Gao, actually tried to corner Gavin who plays Chris over Buddie - this was a few years ago so Gavin was even younger than he is now and I personally think that is an incredibly unfairly loaded question to give to a child).

If I may dive into speculation for a moment, given how the actors have been SO gleeful about the move to ABC, the fact that they've admitted ABC is letting them do storylines and little moments that FOX wouldn't, and a few other things I won't get into here because this damn thing is long enough already... I suspect FOX would not let Buddie happen. If this is the case, then actors being asked about Buddie is even more loaded because they are being asked questions about it and they can't say "yeah we want to but the network won't let us." THEY WILL GET FIRED FOR THIS.

But, whether or not my speculation is true, the fact remains that when you are repeatedly, over and over, aggressively asked if this fan ship is going to happen or not, you get tired. There's only so many times that someone can give a diplomatic answer before you just want to snap "stop fucking asking me!" Journalists love to take advantage of fandom and social media chatter to get attention for their articles so asking over and over again about Buddie isn't because they genuinely care or think it'll happen, it's to get shippers reading their article, and so bombarding the actors and writers with this question when they've already kinda said their peace a lot about it is frustrating. Just! Leave them alone!

And AGAIN: if this was a M/F ship there could maybe be room for teasing the will-they-won't-they but because of historically bad treatment of queer characters and fans, THEY CANNOT DO THAT. So the only option open to them is to KEEP THEIR MOUTHS SHUT. And keeping one's mouth shut and threading that diplomatic needle for years is EXHAUSTING.

We do want Buddie to be canon, nonny, and in my opinion we are going to get it. All this recent PR supports that, (again: in my opinion).

However, we have seen Oliver get bombarded with what he thinks about Buddie until the cows come home, and he deserves a break. There's nothing new he can say, there's nothing new he's allowed to say. We have seen other parts of the fandom scream that we're being queerbaited because Buddie didn't instantly go canon, without any consideration for the fact that a) queerbaiting is a marketing tactic and b) there might be other factors at play preventing it going canon. We have seen journalists take advantage of us, the shippers, in order to get attention, and we have seen them create an awkward and embarrassing atmosphere in interviews by repeatedly asking about the ship. We have seen shippers make us look bad by hounding the cast and crew on social media about Buddie, treating every woman actress who plays a Buck/Eddie love interest like shit (yes, I know about Edy, but she could be a saint and parts of the fandom would still go onto Instagram to call her names), and generally being absolute pills that would tempt any showrunner, actor, or writer to say "y'know what fuck 'em let's not make Buddie canon I'm not rewarding this shitty behavior."

"If we want Buddie then shouldn't we be asking Buddie questions?" No. Not like journalists and fans have been. It's something to bring up - in my opinion - sparingly and with an awareness of how queer storylines and ships and fandom have been mocked, ignored, baited, and so on over the years. They don't ask about Buddie because they give a shit. They ask because they want our clicks for their ad revenue and they want our retweets and likes and comments. And it's certainly not something to bombard the actors with on social media and bitch at them if it doesn't happen. It just makes the rest of fandom look bad and makes us look like children.

Additionally: These are not new questions! They're not only asking these questions now that it looks like Buddie will go canon, with serious hope and consideration based on the marketing and storylines. They've been asking this since season fucking two, when Buddie was clearly not planned, just to get fangirl (gn) clicks. They wanted to get attention and teehee over how Oliver/Ryan/whoever reacted to people thinking Buck and Eddie should touch dicks. 'Kay?

We know the pattern. So when every piece of media is screaming BUDDIE!!! we are not seeing it as "OMG could we go canon?" We see it as another round of being taken advantage of for article attention, another round of parts of the fandom being bullies and yelling about being baited, and another round of the actors being backed into uncomfortable corners.

That's why we're concerned, worried, and annoyed.

*collapses* I hope this covered everything and explained it all.

[tswwwit]

Was revisiting Billdip stuff after the boom of Gravity Falls 2024, and just wanted to ask

Where did the nickname 'sapling' come from? I've seen it in fan art and writing and was just curious!!

I......... might have to take the blame for that? A long time ago, I used it in a fairly popular fic. I remember because I was mid-scene and thinking 'hmm, what other nicknames/terms of endearment would Bill use for Dipper?' to vary up terms in my writing, then thinking 'Pine Tree, so, tree related. And a small tree is a sapling, and that sounds kinda cute!'. Of course others may have also come to the same conclusion independently, but I hadn't seen it before!

[canisalbus]

Just wanted to say I'm really happy that you have shared so much about your characters! I've been following you for a long while now, and I think I remember your post expressing worry about talking about your characters. After seeing all the love shown to them, it makes me happy that you decided to!

Aaa thank you for your kind words! ;-;

[22.7. Editing these here]

[onesidedradiostatic]

so I thought of something so stupid. you’ve seen fanon interpretations of how vox might sleep in standby mode, charging, like 🧍‍♂️? I remembered an earlier alastor fanon/non-canon joke said in an old stream that alastor sleeps standing up in a corner with his eyes wide open. and i was hit with the thought: there could be a one in a billion situation where alastor is on one side of a dark room and vox on the other, red glow blue glow, just standing there like

🧍‍♂️____________________🧍‍♂️

this is the closest they’d ever get to “sleeping together” and neither is even in the true state of “sleep” because that would leave them open to an attack so they’d be standing there. pretending to sleep. surveilling the other. knowing the other is also pretending to sleep but they’re too proud to call a bluff and the next morning when they get back to their collab work they’re like “wow I am so rested, wouldn’t it be stupid if I was too paranoid to sleep and just pretended to all night, not getting any rest? couldn’t be me. you look like shit by the way”

okay this is funny but imagine this but like pre-falling out. they have to share a room for whatever reason, maybe they're working together for something and vox purposely books a room for this specific situation to make a move on alastor and it's seeming like the only one bed trope and vox is like "oh no what could we POSSIBLY do hahahahhaa looks like we have to SHARE" and then alastor is like "oh don't worry dear that's not a problem" and he just goes to the corner and gets himself comfortable while vox stares at him unmoving for 5 whole minutes before submitting that his 5000th plan to make a move on alastor failed