#and god knows i don't want them

[resting-meme-face]

I remember one time I was at a pop culture/Sci-Fi convention and there was a little girl who didn't want to go down the escalator. She was probably 6 or 7. So I guess kind of old to be afraid of the escalator, but people develop at different speeds.

She was crying, and her mother was yelling at her, telling her to stop being a baby. Honestly, the mother was making as much of a scene as the kid, blocking the escalator. Finally, the mother said, "Whatever. I'm leaving you. You can either go down the escalator, or stay up. I don't care." And then she went down the escalator.

My husband and I needed to go down the escalator, and here was this little girl still crying standing by it. So I bent down and was like, "Hey, do you think you could go down the escalator if I held your hand and helped you?" And the kid sniffled and nodded her head. So I grabbed onto her hand, and we went down. Right at the end, I said, "Big jump! We're going off!" and helped her step off. She'd stopped crying by this time, and I could just see her mother in the distance, and I told her, "There you go. Good job! There's your mom, you can catch up with her."

She ran off to catch her mom.

And I just keep thinking, if someone like me, who doesn't want or have kids, who, just like OP, doesn't particularly like kids, can take a simple step to be kind to a kid and help them down the escalator like that, then why the fuck couldn't her mother? It wasn't a big thing that she needed to go down the escalator, just someone reassuring her and holding her hand. Hell, maybe she could have done it on her own if her mother had reassured her and told her about how big, brave, and mature she could be. But instead, her mom chose to yell at her.

I just don't get it.

I’m an “I do not like children” person but not an “I hate children” person. I do not want a child. I do not particularly like being in the company of small children. I am not interested in babysitting. I do not think society’s view on procreating being necessary to fulfill one’s life is healthy. But I think kids are people too and they deserve all the resources, time and attention they need to successfully grow. I think the welfare of children is fundamental to society. I smile at babies in public. I try to be sympathetic if a child is having a meltdown in public. I think being cruel to children is one of the worst things a human can do.

This puts me in a strange middle ground because I absolutely cannot get along with the “I love babies, I need to have kids, my kids are my world, having children is sooo beautiful, the world should cater to children always” crowd or the “I think children are like disgusting little rats, I hate them, they’re subhuman” crowd.

[lgbtlunaverse]

The world exists in such a baffling state of simultaneous sex-aversion and sex-hegemony. Every social platform on the internet is trying to banish sex workers to the shadow realm but I can't post a tweet without at least two bots replying P U S S Y I N B I O. People are self-censoring sex to seggs and $3× but every other ad you see is still filled with half-naked women. Rightwingers want queer people arrested for so much as existing in the same postal code as a child and are also drumming up a moral panic about how teenage boys aren't getting laid enough. I feel like I'm losing my mind.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

HOT, SINGLE, UNSTUDIED SPONGES. 3000 NAUTICAL MILES AWAY. Come sail the distance and read Tiger Tiger!

[literarymerritt]

Thinking about Them 🥺

Art Tumblr | Twitter

[hyperblue]

terry: i used to make really poor choices about my life, so now I'm redeeming myself by being batman

dick, who is always five seconds away from killing himself when he has to be batman: what an... interesting way of seeing things

tim, who can not EVER be allowed to be batman: huh.

[bixels]

In the past, people in the Animal Crossing community would make fun of Tom Nook as a sleazy landlord. Since then, he's really rehabilitated his image as this 'heart of gold' businessman (he's the one who puts bells and furniture in trees for you to find! he adopted orphans! he donates to charity!), but New Horizons genuinely paints the most devious version of him.

He's successfully privatized settler colonialism: you pay HIM to move to a "deserted island" (which apparently the oceans in the AC world are just full of) and start a colony that he is directly invested in. At best he's running a weird vacation package scam (you arrive on the island with no money and in debt for "using his services"). At worst, he's using you to set up company towns. For god's sake, he literally has his own fake currency that he forces you to use to pay off your debt. But don't worry, he's repackaged it in a way that definitely doesn't sound like an MLM scam: the Nook Mileage Program!

You're no longer just his tenant or his temporary part-timer, you're his business lackey. The entire tutorial section of the game has you spending actual weeks running around completing tasks and doing hard labor to set up his colony. You're even tasked with preparing his properties and finding buyers for them. No, you aren't a tenant anymore. You work for the landlord. You are directly responsible for finding tenants for him. And he doesn't even fucking pay you. Not for setting up town hall and museum, or his nephew's shop –– which is the ONLY store on the entire island that sells necessities –– or bringing KK Slider to town, or helping populate his town. Not a single cent. No, actually, you have to pay HIM to BUY infrastructure like bridges and stairs and park benches. And all the while, he's telling you're the "resident representative"; you get to call the shots! That the reward is the community's progress. That what you're doing is in everyone's best interest (but most importantly, his).

Since NH's release, people have done a lot of legwork to say that Tom Nook isn't a capitalist while the game shows him at his very worst. He owns the only general store in town. You're forced to use a phone that he modified and branded as his own. Buy Nook-branded furniture and merchandise at the self-serve kiosk in the town hall, a governmental building! There's no conflict of interest here!

But hey, if you're tired of being the landlord/business mogul's goon, you can also find work as a deluxe resort home designer for a company that also pays you in their special company currency that can only be used to buy their products instead of a real salary! Because that's what the Animal Crossing franchise needs! More vacation homes!!!

[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

[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.

[lazylittledragon]

ok i swear i'm not going to talk about my breakup forever but the thing that just keeps bothering me:

i know that not getting what you need in a relationship is a COMPLETELY valid reason to end it but also. i feel like having a very vulnerable moment where i opened up about my struggles with intimacy and being relieved that i didn't have to keep doing things i wasn't comfortable with, then being dumped a YEAR later because of my lack of intimacy. is something i should be allowed to be very hurt by???

[kastalani123]

There's something about the idea that gods change according to belief.

There's something about Aphrodite having to drop her sword and shield and pick up a makeup brush and mirror.

There's something about Zeus's Crown overtaking his hospitality.

There's something about Ares being scrubbed of his care with blood.

There's something about Hera's care being thrown in her face because of her cruelty.

There's something about Dionysus having his artistry and wildness ripped away from him due to his partying.

There's something about Hermes losing his chthonic connections in favour of his trickery.

There's something about Demeter surrendering her fierce, protective love and power over life and death to become a hysterical mother.

There's something about Athena's femininity and protectiveness fading to make her grip her spear and grasp her thoughts tighter.

There's something about Hephaestus forgetting his creations' finesse and intricacy to focus on pure function and efficiency.

There's something about Poseidon's earth-shaking rage that causes waves to rise above the tallest mountains being reduced to occasional vengefulness.

There's something about Apollo giving up his herds and truth and wisdom and plagues to speak the future and heal the wounded through song.

There's something about Artemis turning from children and childbirth to fixate on the wilderness.

There's something about the idea that gods change according to belief.

[prudentseer]

Somebody please remind Joel he has a wife that he's comfortable being shipped with so he can STOP SHIPPING HIMSELF WITH MEN

[frosted-woods]

autumn time to be gay and totally fine and not miserable at all

[egophiliac]

As someone who hasn’t played the twst game very long I just got into it. I wanted to know about events? Like do some not come back? For example do the Masquerade, Port, Beanfest, Ghost bride, starsending events. Do those come back? I hear people say how they missed their chance to get this great card like as if it won’t ever come back and then someone on Reddit will say something like “Oh beanfest happened twice on the JP server” so which events have gotten reruns so far? I would ask about more recent ones like the Easter one but idk if it’s too recent to know if get rerun or if they clarify that it won’t come back? I was really sad to find out about the Silk outfits I missed out on when they visit the scalding sands. I also was really sad to find out i missed out on the anniversary cards because I didn’t play the game yet. I wish they would add the anniversary cards to the store at least…I want to be apart of the celebration :’)

I was looking in the shop and saw all the different groovy items you need to groovify event cards and this question just came to me so I had the urge to ask someone…

welcome to Twst! 🎉 it is a bit confusing to jump right into, especially because. they're not always consistent. :') it sounds like you're probably playing on Eng, which I'm less familiar with, but I'll try based on what I know! (I also don't always remember everything, so somebody please correct me if I get something wrong!)

first, I do recommend the Twst wiki.gg, which seems to stay pretty up-to-date on events for both the Eng and JP versions! it's a great resource for when you want to see if/when an event ran or rerun. in general, I believe that the Eng version only does reruns that have already happened in JP, so if JP has a rerun that hasn't happened yet in Eng, they should get it too eventually! on the other hand, I don't think either version has ever rerun an event more than once. :( BUT this doesn't mean you're entirely out of luck, because:

anniversary events (March for JP, January for Eng) will usually offer a chance to get both an older event SSR and an older birthday SSR in the shop, via buying a special item with exchange currency (which you get by doing pulls on the anniversary gacha, I think you need to do 100-150 pulls for enough currency to buy the item to exchange for an SSR). only SSRs though, and you're limited to one each (one birthday, one event). so if there's an SSR you REALLY want and it's already had its rerun, it's probably worth planning to save up some keys for!

as for actual reruns, they seem to come in a few different flavors:

straight-up rerun, no changes or extra cards

unchanged event story, with a new SSR of a character who wasn't in the story (e.g. Applepom Jamil)

slightly rewritten event story that includes a new SSR (e.g. Ghost Marriage, they don't seem to do this anymore though)

completely new event story that acts as either a sequel or alternate-universe version of the original (e.g. Beans Day part 2, Fairy Gala IF) (though this is pretty rare and might actually count as a separate event, rather than a rerun?)

Master Chef/Culinary Crucible events have never gotten reruns (though they might start now that we've finally gotten through all the characters in JP, time will tell). birthday and Halloween events will also rerun the previous version in addition to the new one -- for instance, Eng should be getting a Glorious Masquerade rerun this year, followed by the new (Playful Land) Halloween event. and a birthday campaign will, in addition to the new card, have a separate pickup for the previous year's birthday card.

for the specific ones you mentioned -- I think Beanfest, Ghost Bride, Fireworks, and Starsending have already rerun in Eng, so those most likely will not be rerun again (at least not anytime soon). Masquerade should be coming back for you guys this Halloween, and Portfest JUST got its rerun in JP, so that should be coming too sometime in the future! (no new SSR though, alas, I was really hoping for a little marching band sailor boy Leona. 😔) the Easter event is the White Rabbit Fest, right? that one hasn't gotten a rerun in JP yet either, so it's still on the table!

all that said, it's entirely possible they'll change the rules at some point and start doing more reruns/chances to get older event cards, especially since the game's been going on for a few years now and some cards haven't been available for a pretty long time! there's only one card that they said was for-realsies limited-time-only and wouldn't ever be available again -- Platinum Grim, since he was to celebrate the 100th anniversary -- so. there's always a little bit of hope for everything else. :D (fairy gala Ortho PLEASE COME BACK SOB)

[queerprayers]

If you need this year to end, if you crave a slow beginning, if you need to be confronted with (re)birth, may I interest you in a liturgical new year? What if, on the first day of Advent, you forgot about the resolutions and the diets and the parties and you lit a candle? What if your new year was a season (not just a day), and you had time to prepare, and January 1st was just another day of Christmas?

Construct your calendar how you wish of course, but I want to invite you to join the Christian new year, even halfheartedly. You have a week to decide (and you can of course have two new years, or none at all).

Advent is for small lights in big darkness, dim mirrors, veils and unveiling, cleaning house, waiting. Christianity beckons you to a new year devoid of self-improvement. We will be changed, of course. But ultimately there's nothing we can do about it. We create what we can and know God will shatter our plans.

It's almost the new year, is what I'm trying to say. If you choose it. Christmas is our second-highest feast day, one worth preparing for. Let secular Christmas happen, participate in it as you wish, but know that the Church will be holding its breath still. There is a dark womb before the birth. Be patient in the growing.

(And if you need a liturgical end of the year, one that is a surrender and a calling amidst the politics and nationalism of this world, may I interest you in the feast of Christ the King?)

[fiepige]

Hobie and Noir both doing a two finger salute

[floralcrematorium]

I'm not your friend or anything, damn

Belarus | Belgium | Czechia | Hungary | Liechtenstein | Monaco | Seychelles | Taiwan | Ukraine | Vietnam