#i've seen people give varying definitions for both terms and i personally don't like siding with any of them just to be safe

[yuriyuruandyuraart]

hey, um, so i heard something about you supporting proshippers, and i just wanted to know if that was true?

not trying to start anything, just wanna know, sorry ('^-^)

i'm not a proshiper!!! but not an anti either i think? like don't get me wrong i despise pedo and underage artworks like hell but i also just blocked the tags and ships that make me feel uncomfortable a long time ago so i don't see it/reblog it accidentally and haven't seen anything like that in a while on my dash

and quite frankly labels like proship and anti terrify me HHH i don't agree nor condone harrasment or hate bombing but i also don't like proship content, especially untagged. i know you mean well dw but if i reblog anything that makes anyone uncomfortable please send me an ask to properly tag it to avoid further discomfort! i just wanna post and reblog art that caters to my hyperfixations hhh :'D

[thebibliosphere]

So I'm currently unemployed because I got fired for taking too much sick leave (it was legally sketchy blah blah blah but in the end I just can't work and take care of myself and investigate my mystery health problems at the same time). So I've been spending more time writing!

I really admire your writing and loved Hunger Pangs. I'm looking forward to the poly elements developing and I'm wondering if you have any advice for writing about poly. I've made one of my projects a snarky take on "write what you know" ... Apparently what I know is southern gothic meets Pacific northwest gothic, chronic illness pandemic surrealism, and falling back-asswards into threesomes.

I know this is a very open-ended question and I don't expect an answer, I'm just curious about it if you have the energy. As a writer, trying to write honestly / realistically about polyamory/enm, I'm curious if you have any thoughts on what's different about portraying monogamy or nonmonogamy in books, romance or erotica or otherwise.

I'm trying to read examples but it's hard to find examples that fit the niche I'm looking at. Excuse me if this question is nonsense, it's the cluster headaches.

I'm sorry to hear you've been dealing with all that and solidarity on the cluster headaches. But I'm glad you're finding an outlet through writing! And I hope you're happy with an open-ended ramble in response because oh boy, there's a lot I could talk about and I could probably do a better job of answering this sort of thing with more specific questions, but let's see where we end up.

There's definitely a big difference between writing polyamory/ENM (ethical non-monogamy) and what people often expect from monogamous love stories.

Just even from a purely sales and marketing standpoint, the moment you write anything polyamorous (or even just straight up LGBTQIA+ without the ENM) you're going to get considered closer to being erotica/obscene than hetero romances. It's an unfair bias, but it's one that exists in our society. But also the Amazon algorithm and their shitty, shitty human censors. Especially the ones that work the weekends. (Talking to you, Carlos 🖕.)

So not only do you start out hyper-aware that you're writing something that is highly stigmatized or fetishized (at least I'm hyper-aware) but that you are also writing for a niche market that is starving for positive content because the content that exists is either limited, not what they want, or is problematic in some fashion i.e. highly stigmatized or fetishy. And even then, the wants, desires, and expectations of the community you're writing for are complex and wildly varied and hard to fit into an easy formula.

When writing monogamous love stories, there is a set expectation that’s really hard to fuck up once you know it. X person meets Y. Attraction happens, followed by some sort of minor conflict/resolution. Other plot may happen. A greater catalyst involving personal growth for both parties (hopefully) happens. Follow the equation to its ultimate resolution and achieve Happily Ever After. 

But writing ENM is... a lot more difficult, if only because of the pure scope of possibilities. You could try to follow the same equation and shove three (or more) people into it, but it rarely works well. Usually because if you’re doing it right, you won’t have enough room in a single character arc to allow for enough growth, and if ENM requires anything in abundance, it’s room to grow.

And this post is huge so I’m going to put the rest under a cut :)

There's also a common refrain in certain online polyam/ENM circles that triads and throuples are overrepresented in media and they may be right to some extent. Personally, I believe the issue isn't that triads and throuples are overrepresented, but that there is such minuscule positive rep of ethical non-monogamy in general, that the few tiny instances we have of triads in media make it seem like it's "everywhere" when in actuality, it's still quite rare and the media we do have often veers into Unicorn Hunter fetish porn. Which is its own problematic thing. And just to be clear, I’m not including this part to dissuade you from writing "falling back-asswards into threesomes." If anything, I need more of it and would hook it directly into my brain if I could. I'm just throwing it out there into the void in the hope that someone will take the thought and run with it, lol.

I’d love to see more polyfidelitous rep in fiction, just as much as I’d like to see more relationship anarchy too. More diversity in fiction is always good.

Another thing that differs in writing ENM romance vs conventional monogamy is the feeling like you need to justify yourself. There's a lot of pressure to be as healthy and non-problematic as possible because you are being held to a higher standard of criticism. Both from people from without the ENM communities, and from the people within. Granted, some people don't give a shit and just want to read some fantastic porn (valid) but there are those who will cheerfully read Fifty Shades of Bullshit and call it "spicy" and "romantic," then turn around and call the most tooth-rottingly-sweet-fluff about a queer platonic polycule heresy. That's just the way the world works.

(Pro-tip for author life in general: never read your own reviews; that way madness lies. I glimpsed one the other day that tagged Hunger Pangs as “ethical cheating” and just about had an aneurism.)

And while that feeling of needing to justify yourself comes from a valid place of being excluded from the table of socially accepted norms, it can also be to the detriment of both the story and the subject matter at hand. I've seen some authors bend so far over backward to avoid being problematic in their portrayal of ENM, they end up being problematic for entirely different reasons. Usually because they give such a skewed, rose-tinted perspective of how things work, it ends up coming off as well... a bit culty and obnoxious tbh.

“Look how enlightened we are, freed from the trappings of monogamy and jealousy! We’re all so honest and perfect and happy!”

Yeah, uhu, sure Jan. Except here’s the thing, not all jealousy is bad. How you act on it can be, but jealousy itself is an important tool in the junk drawer that is the range of human emotion. It can clue us in to when we’re feeling sad or neglected, which in turn means we should figure out why we’re feeling those things. Sometimes it’s because brains are just like that and anxiety is a thing. Other times it’s because our needs are actually being neglected and we are in an unhealthy situation we need to remedy. You gotta put the work in to figure it out. Which is the same as any style of relationship, whether it’s mono, polyam or whatever flavor of ENM you subscribe to* And sometimes you just gotta be messy, because that’s how humans are. Being afraid to show that mess makes it a dishonest portrayal, and it also robs you of some great cannon fodder for character development.

Which brings me in a roundabout way to my current pet peeve in how certain writers take monogamous ideals and apply them to ENM, sometimes without even realizing it. The “Find the Right Person and Settle Down” trope.

Often, in this case, ENM or polyamory is treated as a phase. Something you mature out of with age or until you meet “The One(tm).” This is, of course, an attempt to follow the mono style formula expected in most romances. And while it might appeal to many readers, it’s uh, actually quite insulting. 

To give an example, I am currently seeing this a lot in the Witcher fandom. 

Fanon Netflix!Jaskier is everyone's favorite ethical slut until he meets Geralt then woops, wouldn’t you know, he just needed to find The One(tm). Suddenly, all his other sexual and romantic exploits or attractions mean nothing to him. Let's watch as he throws away a core aspect of his personality in favor of a man. 

Yeah... that sure showed those societal norms... 

If I were being generous, I’d say it’s a poor attempt at showing New Relationship Euphoria and how wrapped up people can become in new relationships. But honestly, it’s monogamous bias eking its way in to validate how special and unique the relationship is. Because sometimes people really can’t think of any other way to show how important and valid a relationship is without defining it in terms of exclusivity. Which is a fundamental misunderstanding of how ENM works for a lot of people and invalidates a lot of loving, serious and long-term relationships.

This is not to say that some polyam/poly-leaning people can't be happy in monogamous relationships! I am! (I consider myself ambiamorous. I'm happy with either monogamy or polyamory, it really just depends on the relationship(s) I’m in.) But I also don't regard my relationship with a mono partner as "settling down" or "growing up." It's just a choice I made to be with a person I love, and it's a valid one. Just like choosing to never close yourself off to multiple relationships is valid. And I wish more people realized that, or rather, I wish the people writing these things knew that :P

Anyway, I think I’ve rambled enough. I hope this collection of incoherent thoughts actually makes some sense and might be useful. 

----

*A good resource book that doesn't pull any punches in this regard is Polysecure by Jessica Fern. It's a wonderfully insightful read that explores the messier side of consensual non-monogamy, especially with how it can be affected by trauma or inter-relationship conflicts. But it also shows how to take better steps toward healthy, ethical non-monogamy (a far better job than More Than Two**) and conflict resolution, making it a valuable resource both for someone who is a part of this relationship style***, but also for writers on the outside looking in who might have a very simple or misguided idea of what conflict within polyam/ENM relationships might look like, vs traditional monogamous ones.

** The author of More Than Two has been accused of multiple accounts of abuse within the polyamorous community, with many of his coauthors having spoken out about the gaslighting and emotional and psychological damage they experienced while in a relationship with him. A lot of their stories are documented here: https://www.itrippedonthepolystair.com/ (warning: it is not light material and deals with issues of abuse, gaslighting, and a whole other plethora of Yikes.) While some people still find More Than Two helpful reading, there are now, thankfully, much, much better resources out there.

*** Some people consider polyam/ENM to be part of their identity or orientation, while others view it as a relationship style.It largely depends on the individual. 

[mc-lukanette]

I've seen people complain that salters 'ruined the reputation of lukanette', and turned it into nothing more than a spite ship, and I'd like to know what you think of this? Personally, I can't really say that I agree, but I also don't actively look for lukanette content unless it's from you, and since you're the biggest lukanette shipper I know, I thought you might perhaps know where this whole idea came from, or might have an opinion on it.

Firstly, aww, that’s so sweet that you go to me for your prime Lukanette content! Thank you!

As for the question itself, the way I look at it is like... good riddance?

That might not seem to make sense, but my basic point is that people who say that most likely didn’t ship Lukanette in the first place. It’s easy to bash the “sub-ship” of a show because the main one exists, so you’ll hear substandard arguments all the time like, “it’s not endgame so you shouldn’t ship it,” “you just don’t get the show,” and of course, “you just like Lukanette to spite the love square.”

Attacking the fans of something to attack a show/ship is the “easy” way out while simultaneously being the laziest. If those people want to let others dictate their opinion on a ship/show/whatever when the people who follow said thing have literally nothing to do with it in terms of how it plays in canon, that’s their problem and I’m personally glad not to have them around, y’know? Good and bad fans exist for basically everything, and allowing a side to change one’s opinion in that way isn’t the way to go.

I could easily list a bunch of examples of bad experiences I’ve seen Lukanette shippers have with love square shippers, but I don’t, and I don’t judge the love square based on my opinion of Lukanette (I also stay in my lane by not crosstagging but that’s a different topic altogether).

Yes, I don’t like the love square. Yes, I wish Lukanette were endgame instead. Yes, some of my fics will contain varying amounts of salt depending on my mood (though I keep it pretty sugary on mc-lukanette for the most part, and one of my No Context November posts even has Chat Noir being best buds with Ladybug and encouraging her relationship with Luka), and sometimes my ideas involve Adrien and Marinette breaking up in some way (whether it was on friendly terms or not is up in the air; depends on what I can get out of the idea).

All of those factors together does not mean that I ship Lukanette for the sake of spiting anyone or any ship. I just adore Lukanette and it’s obviously going to squeeze its way into whatever I write because why would I not put it into everything???

What I think happens is that people see Lukanette fics having salt about Adrien/the love square and then make a connection where there isn’t one, believing that Lukanette shippers only ship it because they’re salty about the love square.

That is flat-out not true. There are multiple Lukanette shippers who enjoy both Lukanette and the love square at the same time, then fell off of the love square when it stopped working for them.

There’s an inherent bias that comes from disliking something. Presuming these people who say “salters ruined Lukanette” never shipped it in the first place, they’d be more likely to see other people talk about how Lukanette shippers did x/y/z and then just roll their eyes like, “of course they did.” If they did ship it and then fell off, it was just a matter of influence they chose to participate in, because the one meant to curate their experience is them, and as this very lovely and polite anon points out (as they don’t know what the fuss is about with “salters ruining Lukanette” because they’re not seeing it), exposure to things one doesn’t like about a fandom won’t happen if precautionary measures are taken, and the way people absorb certain shows/ships happens to cause them to see content that gives the a particular viewpoint.

But one they see that content, it is their choice to let it seep in and change their opinion. I, for example, take measures myself (more because I want to avoid particular fics or people writing Luka in specific ways) and I basically never see anything I don’t like. On the off chance I do, it’s my fault because I didn’t take proper steps, but I’m also not going to use whatever I saw as a reason to generalize and say that everyone is like that. I just say it’s this-or-that person and I move on because I think it’s incredibly rude to see a few people (regardless of how “loud” they are and how much of a fuss they’re making) and go, “okay, it’s ruined for me.”

(Side note too that there are popular salt fics out there that happen to be Lukanette endgame, and those AUs typically have tags that can be blocked; I find it really weird that people get on the case of “salty” people - who are usually generalized for “not seeing the good in things” - for complaining/”ruining” something when they themselves are being salty at the salters).

Something I think people miss when equating Lukanette with salt is that the reason Lukanette is often endgame in salt fics is that Luka makes Marinette happy; he is her “light in the darkness,” as it were, and apologized the moment he thought he’d offended her. Salt fics touch on the fact that Marinette gets hammered a lot by the show, but Luka doesn’t have that negative effect on her, being so far removed from the overwhelming dumpster fire that gets thrown at Marinette that he can just be the source of comfort that she needs.

Calling Lukanette a “spite ship” is also laughable when Lukanette shippers that I’ve known/seen have perfectly understandable reasons for shipping it, and that’s not what a spite ship entails. Salters didn’t “turn” Lukanette into anything, and suggesting such things feels more like a false attack to scare those people into stopping whatever they’re doing just because the person “attacking” personally dislikes it.

I can write Lukanette whether I’m salting about Adrien or not, regardless of if he’s there, and any ship I give to Adrien is not to keep him away from Marinette; I ship ships because I think the characters making up that ship have a genuinely good connection.

Could there be a discussion of why whatever% of salt fics end in Lukanette endgame? Of course, and maybe it really does come down to the fact that Lukanette shippers happen to see the show in a different/more critical way and want to get their frustrations out by writing fanfiction that flips the treatment of Marinette on its head.

But... So what?

Fact of the matter is, Lukanette is a tiny minority of the fandom (if you go by AO3 statistics, there are like 1000 Lukanette fics - excluding the love square tag - and 20000 love square fics; if you go by the amount of people following the tags on Tumblr, Lukanette is a lot closer, but still), and I think it’s really silly to say it’s ruined because x amount of people (who definitely do not represent the entire Lukanette fandom; no one does) decided to make it endgame in a salt fic or said somewhere that they felt it was better than the love square.

[rockofeye]

It'd be nice to see sort of a "Creole for beginners" post that talks about what terms are common in Vodou and maybe explains the grammar structure. I've noticed a lot of Creole I can mentally translate myself if I think about it long enough since many French words were taken into English awhile back, but French itself I don't actually know so sometimes it's quite a reach. The evolution of the language seems parallel with the evolution of Vodou and that's really interesting to me.

So, this ask has been sitting for awhile, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot as I am just finishing up an intensive month-long Kreyòl class.

Haitian Kreyòl/Kreyòl Ayisyen is a fascinating, gorgeous, succulent language. In some ways, it is super straightforward and in other ways, it is deeply complex as befits a language that has roots in Romance languages (more than one!), African languages (more than one!), and Indigenous languages. Like vodou, it is a language that embodies the history of Haiti and it has and does evolve as culture and the world advances.

Outside of Haiti, there is the idea that there is no common orthography/common way of speaking and utilizing the language. This is wrong wrong wrong. Largely, this stems from the fact that, until about 50 years ago, Kreyòl was almost entirely an oral only language because of colonialism–Kreyòl has only begun being taught in schools in the last decade, yet almost every Haitian speaks it fluently (the elite class speaks French, but that is largely a class marker–everyone knows Kreyòl). Many Haitians do not know how to write in Kreyòl, and write the best that they are able which leads to widely varied output….which leads outsiders to say that there is no commonly accepted orthography.

It would take a long, LONG time to really deconstruct and explain how Kreyòl works in practice so I’m not going to go there entirely, but here are some basics:

Kreyòl has 32 letter/symbols in its alphabet. Within that, there are 15 vowels/vowel sounds and 18 consonants/consonant sounds. Kreyòl only utilizes one accent (grave accent/aksan grav). Things with the alphabet that trip up Kreyòl learners who are native English speakers include:

‘C’ is not utilized except as a compound sound in ‘ch’, which is a soft sound like ‘shh’ and not a hard sound like ‘chair’.

‘U’ is not utilized except in compound sounds with other vowels.

‘G’ is always hard, never soft.

In Kreyòl, everything written is spoken–there are no silent letters, ever. A professor of mine terms Kreyòl as a truly democratic language; every letter has a sound that is expressed orally. 

Basic sentence structure is Subject-Verb-Object (Li se yon bèl fi/She is a beautiful woman) and Noun-Adjective (Li bèl/She is beautiful). Within that structure:

Tenses and conditions (positive/negation) are assigned by separate verb markers/particles. Absense of a verb marker makes the tense automatically present.

Verbs largely do not conjugate, with some exceptions.

Articles are placed separately from the noun–definite articles are ALWAYS after the noun, indefinite articles are ALWAYS before the noun, and this gives speakers of other languages fits because it is different than the Romance languages most closely related to Kreyòl (my class had several folks who spoke several European-derived languages fluently, and the folks who spoke French or Spanish fluently struggled the most).

Adjectives are mostly after nouns, except when they are not.

Kreyòl is a language of double speak, both in general and in vodou. Words carry multiple meanings depending on context and tone, which can be a struggle when learning and can lead to confusion and sometimes awkward conversation. For example, the word for walk and market is spelled and pronounced the same way, the word for pen can also refer to internal genitalia and/or pubic hair in a female-assigned person in a somewhat rude/abrupt way, and utilizing a nasal versus open vowel sound in ‘I would like to meet you’ in Kreyòl changes that sentence to ‘I would like to fuck you’. Luckily, most Haitians are extremely accommodating to outsiders and understand that mistakes are honest mistakes (but they will laugh…).

Tone and composure (how you fix your face when you speak) is super important. How a sentence is said communicates as much, if not more, than the actual word. How I say ‘yon fanm sa a la’ can change ‘the woman over there’ to ‘can you believe this biiiiiiiitch over there’.

Kreyòl must be spoken with mouth open: no mumbling, etc. To get words across accurately, the mouth must open to make all the sounds.

The language is an independent standalone language with piece of French, Spanish, English, and multiple African languages visible. Much of the sentence structuring is African-derived, particularly from Bantu and Yoruba sources. There is a recent and evolving movement to claim identity of the language as Haitian only, not as Kreyòl.

The language also reflects the lived history of the country and it’s people. A lot of common phraseology reflects the history of enslavement; one of the more common ways to ask where someone lives in-country is ki bò ou ye/kibò ou ye, which translates to ‘what side are you from’. This is directly related to how enslaved Africans lived; plantations were huge and sprawling and so when enslaved Africans met others who were on the same plantation, how they related where they lived on the plantation was in that manner. Like vodou, the language is it’s own living history.

In the religion, language gets more complicated. French is utilized in some specific instances and some spirits, if/when they speak, only speak French, but Kreyòl is the liturgical language of the religion. All the songs and majority of the prayers are in Kreyòl, the community speaks Kreyòl, etc. In general, French is falling away as being a conversational language in Haiti–it is often used in business and medicine, but that’s about it.

There is also langaj, the language of the spirits. This is largely untranslatable language that spirits sometimes use in possession–it can be a combination of Kreyòl and African-descended sounds that are not complete in any African language. What langaj means is often private between the spirit and to whom that spirit is speaking, with the most common uses become accepted parlance (think ritual exclamations, like ‘ayibobo’, ‘awoche Nago’, ‘alaso’,  ‘djarvodo/djavodo/djavado’).

Kreyòl is also spoken differently by spirits than by people. Kreyòl in general has many dialects throughout the country, and it follows that the spirits have many dialects as well. Kreyòl in general is spoken very fast by Haitians, and the spirits follow suit with that. In addition, some spirits speak more rural or localized forms of Kreyòl depending on what part of Haiti they are from. Some spirits speak very nasally, some speak so softly it almost sounds like they are only letting out soft breaths, some mix Kreyòl and langaj, some only speak/yell at top volume. All of that is super different than what a language program or even an in-person class can teach, and soKreyòl learned and used in religious settings is picked up contextually. 

LearningKreyòl can be a daunting pursuit. Since it is SO orally focused, the best way is to learn orally in an immersive setting; either an intensive class or in Haiti or the Haitian community. There are some language programs, most of them are not great. Here’s what I like:

Ann Pale Kreyol by Albert Valdman is an excellent place to start. Though it is older and some of it is dated, it is still pretty foundational and his teaching methods are still used in classroom teaching. It is pricey for a used copy, but there are PDFs easily available online.

Valdman also produced a bilingual English-Haitian Kreyòl dictionary and it is FANTASTIC. I have several dictionaries and this is by far the best–you get definitions of words, what parts of speech they are, and how they are used both in English and in Kreyòl sentences. It is pricey and you could beat someone to death with it, but it is worth it for learning.

Pawol Lakay is as useful as Ann Pale Kreyol is, and it also comes with CDs (if you can threaten Amazon into making sure they send them with the book). It can be a little weak on sentence structure and what parts of speech are, but it’s good. There is a forthcoming language learning system for Kreyòl that beats the pants off of anything else on the market but it is not out yet.

MangoLanguages is good for basic hello/goodbye/my name is fluency, but I did not find it useful for conversational use. Good introduction, though, and the pronunciation in-program is pretty on-point. Most public library systems and college/university libraries have a free subscriptions for this, there are also pay options.

There are other books that are aimed at travelers and casual users which can be useful, but the above are the best resources I have seen so far. I do not like the Pimsleur system for Kreyòl at all, as it is super limited to essentially picking up women in Port-au-Prince which is great if that’s your jam but not useful for much of anything else. Youtube is full of Kreyòl movies and television and music, which is good to throw on in the background to absorb the sound and cadence of the language. Several professors have cautioned about listening to Haitian radio unless it originates in Haiti, saying that most Haitian radio originating in the US is a broadcast in a mix of Kreyòl and bad French, which can trip up a learner.

I hope this helps! Let me know if I can offer more info.