Reblog if you think polyamorous people are valid

Hey lads, ladies, and lovers. Me again.

In light of the current state of things, what with it being Election Day and all, just so y’all know where I stand:

Black Lives Matter

Trans Lives Matter

Aspec/Bi/Pan/Poly People are SUPER Valid

You know what, just the entire LGBTQ spectrum- All Y’all Matter

Science Is Fucking Real My Guys

Non-christian Relgions are IMPORTANT and Deserve RESPECT

Disabled People should be Respected and Treated with Dignity, not like children, and Absolutely Not as a Hopeful Sob Story

If your Feminism doesn’t include WOC or Trans People, then it’s Not Feminism

MAPs, TERFs, and nazis are NOT WELCOME (and blue lives don’t exist)

I am a white, cis, bi woman. I’m here to share my art, and frankly I’m a little appalled that “I think All Human Beings should be treated with Dignity and Respect” has become a Political Statement. But I hope I can be a safe spot for you guys.

If anything that’s been said above disagrees with you, please unfollow and block me. I’m not here for drama - unless it’s about the Drama of Star Wars. This is the only time I’ll be “Political” on this blog, and the only time I will not engage with questions or comments. What’s said above is final. Thank you for your time.

-Liz

Like listen there's some shit that's a 100% no from me because it triggers intrusive thoughts for me from past abuse; and ya know what I fucking do? Blacklist! Unfollow! Block if I need to! All because someone was "abused" in a Poly Relationship which like yeah that's super shitty man; but people need to take control to make themselves safe. Plus threatening someone by telling them to kill themselves is emotional abuse and super illegal :) :)

Right?? I mean I’m a little sympathetic bc being triggered fuckin sucks bad but like... it’s not the way to go about things, and you can’t just be pulling the ‘i was triggered card’ over and over again. the fact that this person has done it multiple times suggests to me that it’s not just a knee jerk ‘i was triggered and said/did something in anger and took it too far’ either, which can happen. Having seen it over and over again by who I very much suspect is the same person suggests to me that the person is either lying, or using being triggered as an excuse to full-on attack people and it’s not good enough tbh.

READ the tags on things that’s what they’re there for, and find out how to block things. Don’t come after 3 people writing the same ship with the same tags one after the other. And if you are so sensitive to a trigger that the mere mention or even implication of something upsetting (eg tagging Character A/Character B/Character C) sets you off to such a degree that you feel the urge to tell people to kill themselves, you really need to get some help.

Readers/consumers of content, please don’t feel that I’m expecting you to tiptoe around creators and shoulder 100% responsibility all by yourself. If you find something triggering or potentially triggering in somebody’s work, especially if it’s a creator/blogger you like and want to stick with, I don’t think there’s any harm in writing to them and mentioning it, or asking them to tag it. It can also be helpful to do this off anon, or at least with some level of manners, so that creators understand where you’re coming from, especially if you want something done about it - they may be more defensive than you’re expecting, as they’ve probably had more people harass or troll them (and/or seen their friends go through it) than you might think.

On the flip side, I think as creators it’s important to be mindful that for people to protect themselves we have to give them some tools such as tags, that they can block, and I do believe in tagging triggers where possible to be helpful. Try to remember that triggers are not necessarily predictable or dark things, and that something that might seem fake or ridiculous to you, might not be so to the person going through it. Triggers are very personal and they are completely amoral - I know someone who gets triggered with memories of her abuse by a particular song, for example. Even I used to have my anxiety triggered by people holding hands of all things. People asking you about something aren’t inherently telling you it’s evil, and tagging is not censorship, so please try not to be offended when people ask you to tag. Unfortunately, expect that some people may need to unfollow or potentially even block you if they find your content triggering especially if it’s not something that can be easily avoided. But that doesn’t mean you can’t protect yourself either.

It is also important as creators to protect ourselves, and that might be in not responding to these comments, in reporting and blocking them if necessary. I don’t like holding the “you make a valid point but you said it in a mean way so I’m not going to do it” card over anybody’s head, but using your trigger(s) as a way of assessing what or who is evil and should die is not even making a valid point. So in terms of dealing with it from the POV of somebody receiving an ask like this, some advice is:

Remember that you don’t actually owe anyone anything, so you can ignore them, delete, report or block if you want to

BUT I would encourage you not to react straight away. Are they actually coming after you, or do you feel threatened because of the unexpected criticism? Maybe a bit of both, in which case, is there actually anything valid in the message eg could you be tagging better? I think I caved a bit too easily on mine, but I have also seen people not tag things like suicidal thoughts or attempts because they happened in a nightmare type scenario, but the reader is still subjected to them, so it is probably still worth tagging imo. Also, are you already using a tag they might not know about (or might be conveniently ignoring, if they’re just out to get you) which you can direct them toward so this doesn’t happen in future?

**PLEASE DO NOT** bite back in a similar tone of anger or sarcasm, it really doesn’t help anybody and encourages an antagonistic relationship between writers and readers/creators and consumers. Even if the person messaging you is out of line or is harassing you, somebody seeing this might feel that they can no longer come to you with legitimate triggers etc and have them respected.

If you feel up to it, maybe ask the person to come back and talk about it when they are in a calmer mood. (but again if they are triggered to the point of telling you to kill yourself by the mere whisper of your subject they probably aren’t up to a conversation about it)

If not, deleting the ask, and or reporting and/or blocking is 100% fine. I sometimes delete the first, but only block or report if they come back, or if it is particularly bad. Decide what works for you, but be safe.

REMEMBER THOUGH - Creators and readers can and do work together all the time to ensure that we can all have a pleasant experience in our various fandoms. I would encourage everyone who has read this far and might get the impression that we’re all a bit antagonistic, to remember that. The MAJORITY of the time, tagging works and functions like block are great backups. But when things get out of control (eg in the case that this anon is referencing) there are steps you can take. We’ve got to look out for ourselves as well as each other in this world.

My primary partner (of about a year) and I formed a triad a few months ago & my primary fell really hard for our new gf. They've been living together since we all started dating and they've gotten so close that I feel unwanted/ like I'm being pushed out of the relationship. They both are happy to reaffirm for me that they still love me and want to be with me whenever I express this insecurity, but that doesn't make it go away. Am I being too sensitive? Is this internalized monogamy? What do I do

Hi! I’m so sorry you are feeling unwanted! That is a terrible feeling. I don’t really believe there’s such a thing as “too sensitive.” Whatever you feel is valid. When I am in a situation where I feel like I’m not appreciated enough, and verbal reassurance isn’t enough (which it sounds like is the case for you, since their reassurance isn’t helping), I try to think about whether there’s a concrete action that I’d like my partner(s) to take…or whether there’s something I can do on my own to minimize whatever’s triggering the feelings.Is there a specific thing that your partners could do that you feel is missing from your relationship? This might be a good thing to brainstorm about…write down some ideas if you want! Just a few thoughts off the top of my head (since I don’t know you or much about your situation, I don’t know if these will apply or not):

-Schedule specific date nights for just two of you at a time (you with partner A, you with partner B), on a recurring/regularly scheduled basis – if you feel out of the loop when it’s all three of you, maybe having more one-on-one time with each of them could help (especially if the two of them are already getting a lot of that due to living together). You could even ask that, when you’re with each of them separately, you keep conversation about the third person to a minimum, so that you’re focusing time and energy on your individual connections.

-When all three of you are spending time together, if they are making references to things that are just between the two of them (inside jokes, etc), you could ask if they could keep that to a minimum out of politeness to you, or at least to explain their references and try to bring you into them.

As for things you can do to manage the onset of those feelings:

I’ve heard some folks on poly facebook groups talk about needing to temporarily unfollow their partners on facebook. If they are posting things on social media about just the two of them, and you’re uncomfortable seeing that, it would be well within your rights to choose not to see that content.

Side note: with social media, I don’t believe it’s fair to ask people not to post things publicly; rather, the onus should be on the person who doesn’t want to see it to manage what they see. And, I view that as completely different than the other situation above, where I say it’s reasonable to ask them to minimize inside jokes when all three of you are together. The difference? The size of the audience. It’s very different to project something publicly than to subject someone to being a third wheel in a small-group setting. 

Anyway, that’s a bit of a shot in the dark since I don’t know a whole lot about your situation, but I think what my advice comes down to is: (1) think about whether there’s anything you can ask them to do, beyond verbal reassurance, in concrete terms, that would help you feel more included, and (2) think about whether there’s anything you can do to minimize your exposure to their public one-on-one relationship, if that sort of thing bothers you.

Best wishes! Please feel free to write again if you’d like to talk further!