#but anyway my perspective is

[not-poignant]

I feel so much for poor Alex, especially after reading your replies in the last chapter about Sebastian's thinking and motivations (If you don't mind, can you explain a little more about Sebastian's thinking last chapter?). But omg congrats to Alex for standing up for himself and being firm for once! Sebastian absolutely deserved getting the door shut on him lol it must bug him big time that he's not getting straight (badum tss) answers and he's left to work out his new revelations on his own 😂 but it's so interesting seeing him going from bully mentality the day before to defensive and then concerned realization, especially suspecting that Alex has kept it a secret from even his own grandparents and Haley. He seemed so upset about that.

And man I hated that Abigail just blatantly stared at Alex and made a point to not even look away when he looked at her. Ugh that upset me so much! I hate people who do that in general, and then knowing how she feels about him, it's so hostile.

Thanks for another amazing chapter!

Hi hi hi anon

Okay so, Sebastian's thinking in the last chapter was complicated and very dissonant but the cliffnotes are:

He was around his friends, and he was in a different mindset because of it. He wanted to not be humiliated in front of them, but he also kind of...goes into a space which is not necessarily very nice either. Frankly because some of his friends (*cough*Abigail*cough*) aren't very nice either.

He was worried about how it would go. He knew his friends were coming over when Alex would be there, he could have rescheduled and he chose not to. He was nervous.

He wanted to spend time with Alex but had also been avoiding him for a week because of their last talk resulting in Sebastian realising that he'd really hurt Alex and then immediately going into an avoidant/denial space about that.

He wanted to test what 'having Alex over as a cleaner while I have friends over' actually felt like.

He wanted to see if Alex was actually going to humiliate him, because he's been stressed about that even though he's simultaneously been pretty sure it won't happen.

And a tiny part of him did actually want to humiliate Alex.

So we start there! I'd say there was more going on for Sebastian than that, but this is a good start. :D

But omg congrats to Alex for standing up for himself and being firm for once! Sebastian absolutely deserved getting the door shut on him lol it must bug him big time that he's not getting straight (badum tss) answers

I mean it does bug Sebastian that he doesn't get straight answers because Alex is communicating passive aggressively and in an extremely toxic manner. Like, that should aggravate people, it's not polite or good to treat people the way Alex treats Sebastian when he talks or communicates like that, even if we sympathise with him. Leaving people to work stuff out on their own when you want to actually have a meaningful connection to them is a shitty thing to do, especially since Alex could have literally started the conversation with 'I want you to leave, and I don't trust talking to you about this' as soon as Sebastian brought up what he did.

Alex chose to be passive aggressive. He chose to be monosyllabic and resistant. He enjoyed baiting Sebastian and he enjoyed making him angry until it scared him too much and he changed his mind. This isn't...reasonable, healthy behaviour. It feels satisfying to us, and it gives us a glimpse into why so many people choose toxic communication styles over healthy ones, but yeah, Sebastian certainly has good reasons to be annoyed by Alex's communication style, because Alex's communication style is unhealthy.

(Like, Sebastian's not healthy either when it comes to communicating, my point is that like... Alex created a situation where Sebastian kept escalating. Alex wanted him angry and distressed and he only acted 'maturely' when he was triggered, and showed almost no sympathy for Sebastian's confusion, distress and uncertainty. It was very much a 'I feel hurt, now you're going to' - because it doesn't occur to him that Sebastian might be feeling plenty lost already if he's come around late at night after his friends have gone home because he's worried/afraid that Alex might be somehow trying to hurt his friend David specifically due to homophobia and wants to make sure that's not the case. Sebastian has been bullied by Alex and specifically in homophobic ways, he has no reason to think Alex had good intentions re: David - Alex became triggered, Sebastian came over because he was also triggered).

-

And man I hated that Abigail just blatantly stared at Alex and made a point to not even look away when he looked at her. Ugh that upset me so much! I hate people who do that in general, and then knowing how she feels about him, it's so hostile.

It really is! Unlike Alex and Sebastian, who are - in some ways - both as bad as each other, she was just straight up rude and had no reason to be.

(I'm actually pretty Abigail critical in general lmao).

Thanks for another amazing chapter!

Thank you for reading :D :D

[fattylime]

a study i did because i realized idk how to draw environments at all LMAO

a few people have asked, so this is a now a print <3

[blueskittlesart]

Dear Big Brother

kind of a sequel to this comic

[humbuns]

please never go away

[hazeleyed-fay]

i feel like im in a weird demographic when it comes to the percy jackson live action series because of the age i was when i read them. cause i read the lightning thief for the first time when i was in single digits, so percy being twelve seemed appropriately grown up. and then as i got further into the series and into heroes of olympus, percy got older with me, and was always kinda broadly my age or a little older. so like, the movie cast was too old when that happened, because they were way older than me. but now the series cast is actual twelve year olds (or so) and they are so obviously just little babies that im now forced to confront the fact that uhhh percy was in fact a fuckin child when all this started??? exCUSE ME???

[cheesuschrist-iii]

Woah what’s this? Cheesus draws a background??

So I wanted to draw Burn and then it occurred to me I could draw a comic of the first book prologue cuz that’s honestly when she’s at her coolest.

I’ve never really drawn comic panels before so sorry if it looks weird.

I’m genuinely surprised I finished it - it took like 20 hrs for some reason.

Click for better quality n such

[purble-sarah]

a sketch redraw of a redraw of a redraw of a comic scene (the old versions of this +the original comic panel are below)

[jamiethebeeart]

Lineart by @ovytia-art which was such a blast to color - I love the entire vibe of all of them hanging out together so much @green-with-envy-phandom-event

[casscainmainly]

God this panel kinda drives me crazy. From Batman & the Outsiders #17, Shiva asks Duke about his suit, whether it was his choice. And how does Duke respond? He... doesn't. He parrots what is clearly something Bruce said to him, but never clarifies whether it was 'his choice' at all. Because both him and Shiva know it wasn't. And he acknowledges that his suit, with all the Batty-ness (ears, symbol), was specifically designed to make him like Batman.

Then Shiva suggests dark red, which is what Duke wore in We Are Robin and has connotations to Robin as a whole. Duke's reaction - can we let it go? - can be read in many ways, but to me it suggests Shiva's words hit home. He does miss the Robin colours. Becoming the Signal wasn't his choice, but becoming Robin was.

(And throughout this run, Shiva says both Cass and Duke are being held back by Bruce. With Cass this is a clear allusion to being Orphan over Batgirl, so it's not farfetched to read this conversation as being about how Duke was denied Robin to become Signal).

Duke-as-Signal is a symbol of 'people like Batman', but Duke-as-Robin was a symbol of youth, of community, of diversity and of choice. He was a Robin formed without Batman. I know there's no going back, but having Bruce choose the name, the suit, and the time of day that Duke goes out makes the Signal such a fraught identity. I love the yellow, the suit, and the daytime aspect, but I just wish they were Duke's choices, not Bruce's.

[myballsitchaurghouchie]

Quick fanart of one of the scenes from The Rehabilitation Of Death by @bamsara that made me tear up (it's all the siblings. The siblings together make me cry)

[hiding-under-the-willow]

Obsessed with Beef and his repeated instances of ending up as an animal themed mob boss while trying to settle down somewhere peaceful

[nanstar200]

Sorry for disappearing guys whoa 😧😧

Here’s some various DCA and Spamton doodles!!!!

[courfee]

it's been exactly a year since the last chapter of Operation Walburga's Arbitrary No Kissing Ever Rule and I still miss it. This scene is probably one of my favourite things I've ever written and I've wanted to draw it for forever, so now seemed like an appropriate time

[hinamie]

summer is coming so i'm giving them the beach day they deserve

[chamoemileclown]

Carre really carried and then red team devolved into madness when he left

[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.