Straight Ships I Actually Love

Rick x Evie (The Mummy 1999)

Booth x Brennan (Bones)

Doctor x Rose (Doctor Who)

Jake x Amy (Brooklyn Nine Nine)

Kanthony (The Viscount Who Loved Me, Julia Quinn/Bridgerton s02)

Daine x Numair (Immortals Quartet, Tamora Pierce)

Arwen x Aragorn (LOTR)

Margaret x John (North and South)

Bangel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

LoVe (Veronica Mars)

Alanna x George (Song of the Lioness Quartet, Tamora Pierce)

finished watching season one of sense8 i have no idea what kind of sins rajan committed in his past life but they cannot be worse than what kala is doing by stringing him along like this.

Going through the Sense8 tag (because I’m rewatching and it’s still the best) and I just love how much of it is yelling at Netflix about other terrible decisions.

🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼

Since sense8 is trending, I would just like to point out that I'm pretty sure the very first step in developing the beloved characters we all know and love today was literally just the wachowskis pulling out a white board and going "how do we put together the queerest heist team of all time?"

Seriously, look:

Getaway Driver: Capheus

Martial artist: Sun

Hacker: Nomi

Grifter: Lito

Hitter, Law Enforcement: Will

Hitter, Criminal With A Heart of Gold: Wolfgang

Chemicals/Demolitions: Kala

Translator/Infiltrator Who Knows Everyone In A Situation: Riley

Mastermind: They're Literally All Sharing The One Brain Cell

(Bonus:

Optimistic Newbie With Stubborn Streak: Amanita

Funding/Moneybags: Rajan

Plucky Best Friend/Lockpick: Felix

Veteran Hacker: Bug

Artsy Scholar/Love Interest: Hernando

Grifter/Criminal With A Heart of Gold pt. 2: Daniela

Love Interest, Defecting From Law Enforcement Addition: Mun)

Y’all will never make me hate Rajan or hate Rajan and Kala together sorry like Rajan Kala and Wolfgang are a great poly couple

Listen, I came for the acrobatics theme and stay for the throuple. They better deliver on that. But it feels like they do. The set up is all there. Don't let us hanging.

They could still pull a Sense8 Wolfgang x Kala x Rajan.

the whole world coming alive under this new light

Written for gala_apples as part of @holly-poly

Relationship: Wolfgang/Kala/Rajan Rating: Explicit Word count: 4,513

Excerpt:

“Here’s the thing,” she started, “the truth is, I’ve never felt what I’m feeling now for anyone, so I have no frame of reference to compare this to —not that it matters, because I’m fairly sure not many people have been in this specific situation—, but I do know this: my life, as I knew it before, was forever changed by the two of you in different ways. Wolfgang, loving you has opened my eyes to a world that I didn’t think existed outside of the movies.” She noticed Wolfgang’s amused smile. The blockers kicked in already and she couldn’t connect with his feelings, but Kala believed she didn’t need that connection to know exactly what he was thinking. “Which isn’t inherently a good thing either, so don’t get too cocky.

“And Rajan, loving you has been like an awakening: it was slow at first, then I felt it all at once.” Rajan was looking at her with the same look he gave her the day they got married, as if she’d hung the stars in the sky.

“But here’s where I am extremely conflicted, because what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to choose when all I can think is that choosing either of you would mean losing the other one forever? What’s the proper thing to do? To stay with my husband when the other man I love is on the other side of the world but still has a direct way to my thoughts and feelings? And what does it say about me that I am seriously considering a solution where no one has to go?”

CONTINUE READING ON AO3

Open Starter : Kala & Anyone ( @hiddenstarters )

In the months that she had been here, Kala had been trying to reach out to her cluster. No matter where she was, she had always been able to find them as long as they were conscious. When she had woken up without Rajan and unable to find Wolfgang or Riley or any of the others through their connection, she had momentarily thought that all of it had been a very long dream. However, she quickly shook that off. Everything she had gone through was real. Not to mention that logic would not explain how she had ended up in Washington upon waking up from a dream. Sitting in the park with the winter sun shining down on her, Kala closed her eyes and tried to find her family, "Wolfgang..." she whispered, "Lito? Will, Riley?" she whispered all their names like a prayer, saying Wolfgang's name one more time for good measure but... nothing. She opened her eyes and realised someone was there. Her hand flew to her chest as she jumped, "My goodness, you scared me."

yall always wanted polyamory as the answer to a love triangle but then not when sense8 did it and its like “ohhh but kala was never torn between rajan and wolfgang she just wanted wolfgang” like my brother in christ she developed legitimate feelings for rajan after they got married you’re all just stuck on when she said “i dont love him” in season 1. the finale episode really shows both men acknowledging that they both love kala and can work together and the only thing that matters to either of them is her health and happiness. is it a little bit rushed and unrealistic that they didnt need more time to process things? sure yeah cause netflix fucking cancelled it. in my honest opinion season 2 was supposed to be followed by three more seasons that would have built up rajakalagang as a natural throuple over time, but we weren’t allowed that time through NO fault of the writers. so it ends with them having a threesome after a friends wedding and yes its clumsy and we dont know what their relationship is going to look like after that but im so fucking tired of yall claiming its “against the themes” or a “downward arc” for kala you’re all so fucking annoying. sense8 at its core is about the messy and emotional human experience and all the different ways it can be lived, how did yall miss the entire point. anyway i owe lana wachowski my life.

Re: your tags about Wolfgang x Kala x Rajan. I remember how the special was confirmed and I begged we would get a poly end, but I thought it was super unlikely, and then we did. And so many people were angry, even left the fandom (even though we fought so hard for this special) because they were so mad about the poly ending, calling it „out of nowhere“. And I was like: „clearly you didn’t saw what we saw.“

right? i was looking at the tags & i was surprised by people who wasn't into it :( i wholeheartedly believe had it not been cancelled they were building up to it anyway

Your OTP as GIFs

from an old game, but I'm not doing it exactly the same way as before because search engines have greatly deteriorated since then.

Tagging @umbralstars, @boghermit, @lucius-the-sinful, @lovely-english-rose, @jackalopedread and YOU.

Étoile x Astarion

Originally posted by nancykali

I wanted to find a gift related to the keyword Trust but had to give that up after like an hour of fruitless search. So instead we have the moment from Bram Stoker's Dracula where after attempting to refuse Mina his blood because he was feeling guilty about corrupting her, Mina says to her monster, "Take me away from all this death." And. Well.

Étoile x Halsin

No idea what this gif is from, but I couldn't resist. While ultimately I do think it was part of the writer's insensitivity to polyamory to have Halsin be relationship averse, and then turn his epilogue content into fan service — I really like aromantic Halsin expressing love in his own way and not wanting "a relationship" or labels.

Étoile x Zevlor

I don't remember what's being said in this scene, but the romance in the movie Snow Cake is a Very Small part of the movie, but Alan Rickman's character does have a complicated relationship with Carrie-Ann Moss's character — a win for "fucking that old man." The main character of the film is dealing with life after having assaulted (and accidentally killed) the drunk driver who hit and killed his child. He is also present / indirectly responsible (but feels greatly responsible) for the death of a hitchhiker, which brings him to Wawa, Ontario where he meets the hitchhiker's mother, a disabled (autistic?) woman played by Sigourney Weaver. It's a really heavy movie that I only saw once but the layers of it and the fleeting comforts and difficult intimacy of it made this a good gif for what's going on with Étoile and poor Zevlor.

Étoile x Komira x Locke

Another Sense8 gif. The woman in the middle, Kala, had a lot of anxiety about being in love with the man on the left Wolfgang, while living a life that was leading her to be with her betrothed, the man on the right, Rajan. This is also an extremely small sideplot of this show that was hastily wrapped up in the movie / final "episode." It was kind of silly but tbh I enjoyed this particular "unrealistic" resolution where Rajan was willing to explore what love would look like (even initially in an extremely sexual sense) with Wolfgang if it meant Kala's happiness / not losing her heart. A fair, if inaccurate, comparison to be made for how in my primary canon-compliant state for Étoile, I'd ship them with werewolf!Komira but leave Locke to his fate in the House of Healing; though I'd imagine the three of them would have very enthusiastic joy and supportive love in other au's.

Étoile x He Who Was

I wanted to find a gif of love of someone/thing that was not completely human for He Who Was. I first thought of Meet Joe Black, and the few surreal moments, and the moment when his love interest asks him to stay, but I couldn't find a gif of the exact moment I wanted. I'd only seen The Time Traveller's Wife movie once and it was straighter than I remembered, the dialogue in the gifs I found was all wrong for Étoile and He Who Was' dynamic. I just wanted reference to the waiting, to the loss, to the not knowing if your supernatural love would return. Oh well. Instead I was looking up characters described as masochists (intended for He Who Was, but I guess observations can be made about Étoile which would be ... entirely correct), and found Marko from The Lost Boys, like the rest of them. In the scene I chose, they're initiating a (the?) protagonist into their vampire gang, jumped from a bridge and hanging to the beams while a train rushes overhead, scaring their initiate and having the time of their lives. I think He Who Was has a manic excitable laugh in his euphoria and that he enjoys the presence of danger, negotiated and known not to be a sincere threat against him and his holy missions. He and Étoile have a lot of fun in the limitations of a relationship across planes.

see, here’s the thing. my feelings about fandom’s old platitude of how ugh, wouldn’t it be MUCH better if love triangles were resolved by joining everyone in a polytriad?!? aside (triangles have a point, so that is hardly fit for every single one. also messiness is fine. hell, a good triad storyline could be messy as fuck and the better for it, why is it always proposed as a “peaceful” resolution)... that’s just not what Sense8 did with Kalagang + Rajan.

maybe they intended to develop an ot3 from the beginning or maybe not, and maybe if they’d had more time to develop it properly it could’ve been better, or maybe not. but imo, it lacked the set up of a love triangle in the first place.

I’m of the mind that a lot of love triangles are pretty obviously staked in one of the part’s favour from the beginning, on a Doylist level. you can easily see the pattern they follow (spoiler: it’s often misogyny; although sometimes other kinds of bigotry appear to spice things up!). but on a Watsonian level there’s supposed to be... more.

the thing is, with the show’s set-up, what we had is this: Rajan was the appropriate man. the catch. the rich, politically well-connected man Kala has more in common with and everyone and their mother is pressuring her to marry. everything about him is perfect on paper! and yet. Kala isn’t feeling it. there’s no *spark*. she’s going through the motions (even future father in law saw it and tried to cancel the wedding!).

Wolfgang could not be MORE inappropriate for Kala. they couldn’t be more different. worlds apart, in more ways than one. absolutely inconvenient when everything about Rajan is studiously so.

but when she sees him? FIRE. pure, pure fire. they’re drawn to one another despite how mismatched they seem at first sight (until you dig a little deeper). the passion is of the charts and as much as they might try sometimes, they just can’t stay away. when one is in danger, the other loses their SHIT.

if this was a set-up where Kala, Wolfgang, AND Rajan were all central characters, you could get away with calling this a love triangle. but the reality is that Kala and Wolfgang are main characters, and Rajan is a few steps down that ladder.

so is the result a love triangle? or... is this a set-up that screams “Kalagang are the EPIC, FOR THE AGES TRUE LOVE, and Rajan is the obstacle that must be overcome: a man Kala is marrying out of a sense of duty at beast, and simple inertia and boredom with her own life or inability to direct it at worse”?

and I know the show was praised to hell and back for NOT following up on this, and instead going with something ~quirkier and unique, more unexpected; for “subverting the audience’s expectations”. that can be a good thing! although it still irks me how a lot of the praise seemed to be about how Rajan wasn’t villified to prop Kalagang. that’s a good thing for Rajan’s character and the optics that would’ve resulted in such a choice (in a show that was already spotty regarding race, let’s be honest).

but a.) despite the fact that, yes, “husband mistreats or disappoints wife” is a trite, all too common phenomenon in our world, that doesn’t mean it’s inherently bad to tell such a story, or that it can’t be done in a compelling way, and these conversations always acted like it was so. and b.) Rajan being a good man does not mean getting married to him and staying married to him were good choices for Kala. love isn’t a debt you incurr in when someone’s kind to you and/or fundamentally decent to others.

the resolution of this story seemed to hinge into, “love is not finite. there is plenty to spare, and we need to expand our minds when it comes to it”. that’s a lovely sentiment, but with these three it didn’t quite land for me the way it did with other dynamics. and each time I rewatch a little I walk away with a poorer impression of it. it doesn’t quite *click*; the pieces don’t fit together. and I don’t think lack of time due to the cancellation and a rushed finale are solely to blame for that. like, yeah, it’s cute, it’s funny (Rajan’s actor is pretty great at all that); it’s quirky. but I don’t find it effective.

the set-up of Kala’s own feelings is at the epicenter of it. and I just... can’t actually buy they changed in nature. she grows to care for Rajan, to respect him and appreciate him and see him as a honourable man. but “you can love many people equally, if not in the same ways” falls completely flat here, because the difference in her feelings for Wolfgang and her feelings for Rajan are a matter of both quantity and quality. it’s a different love, and a lesser love for it; it’s being built up like that from the start. she’s so lukewarm about Rajan, especially in comparison to how she feels for Wolfgang, that it’s borderline painful and definitely awkward to see. even the way the camera shoots them vs. Kalagang scenes is wildly different, empathising the mundanality of one pair and the ~~epicness of the other.

tl;dr, my problem is that, at no point during the show, do I believe Kala has romantic feelings, let alone some with true depth, for Rajan. which means seeing them set up as a triad (or even a balanced V-shaped relationship with occasional threesomes lol) just... doesn’t convince me. at all.

May and June 2023 Polyam Shipping Day roundup

Hi everyone - it's been a hectic past few months and we missed our May roundup, so here is the roundup for May and June for Polyam Shipping Day.

We had nine works for the month of June across eight fandoms, and 3 works for the month of May across 3 fandoms. All are linked below:

Boy Meets World: Trust Me (fanfic) by The_Lavender_Creator, ughdotcom (angela moore x cory matthews x shawn hunter x topanga lawrence-matthews)

Far Cry 5: Trusting Them (fanfic) by AutisticWriter (deputy x joey hudson x staci pratt)

Final Fantasy XIV: Clearing The Air (fanfic) by @theoreticalconstruct (thancred waters x urianger augurelt x warrior of light x y'shtola rhul)

Kamen Rider Geats: patiens (fanfic) by @flaim-ita (azuma michinaga x kurama neon x sakurai keiwa x ukiyo ace)

Kamen Rider Geats: The Star of the Stars of the Stars and His Co-Stars (fanfic) by @merryfortune (azuma michinaga x kurama neon x sakurai keiwa x ukiyo ace)

Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint: The Remaining Stars (fanfic) by@xnicowritesx (han sooyoung x kim dokja x yoo joonghyuk)

Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint: Trust During the Apocalypse (fanfic) by @xnicowritesx (han sooyoung x kim dokja x yoo joonghyuk x yoo sangah)

Sense8: You Have Us (fanfic) by ughdotcom (kala dandekar x rajan rasal x wolfgang bogdanow)

Sense8: will you touch me like you love me? (fanfic) by @heavensenthale (kala dandekar x rajan rasal x wolfgang bogdanow)

Sonic the Hedgehog: Trust (fanfic) by @sonysakura (amy rose x shadow the hedgehog x sonic the hedgehog)

Stargate SG-1: the journey home (fanfic) by @nonbinaryezrabridger (daniel jackson x sam carter x teal'c)

Ultimate Spiderman: stars (art) by @rolaplayor101 (danny rand x peter parker x sam alexander)

Thanks to everyone who took part this month!

Gentle reminder that if you want your fanwork to be included in the roundup it needs to either be submitted/@ us on tumblr or in the official ao3 collection, and if not uploaded on the day in question let us know what prompt it’s for. And if we've missed any items please send us a note and let us know.

(the premise of sense8 is that 8 people around here the world, including kala and wolfgang, become psychically (kinda) connected, they start to feel each other's feelings, they can see, talk to and help each other despite the fact that they've never physically met each other, etc) (i just realized my explanation doesn't make much sense without this)

rajan/kala/wolfgang mean the world to me they start out as a love triangle but then in the finale rajan and wolfgang meet in person and neither are jealous at all they genuinely like each other and they bond over the fact that they love kala and then they get together as a polycule and many people thought it was too abrupt or out of nowhere but to be fair 1) the show got cut and they had to cram all they could in a 2 hour special, of course it was rushed but i'm sure there would have been more buildup if they got more seasons and 2) there were plenty of hints, people just didn't notice them?? like that scene where kala and wolfgang wake up tangled in each other and rajan comes to bring kala breakfast in bed and he doesn't know wolfgang is there obviously, he can't see him, so he leans to give kala a kiss but the scene shows us he actually kisses wolfgang good morning and afterwards wolfgang looks smitten and immediately touches his lips? it was so cute WHAT DID PEOPLE THINK THIS SCENE WAS ABOUT

anyway sorry for ranting i don't know how much sense i made but i love them so much they were the first polycule i ever saw on tv

i'm also sharing this amv because i can and because i didn't find good gifs about them

dont apologize i loved reading that they sound v cute plus the solution to most love triangles should be polyam tbh so its always nice to see it in canon

Hi! Are you still into Wolfgang/Kala/Rajan?because they've eaten my brain since discovering them last week and I am trying to write them between getting mad that we didn't get the full amount of seasons of them!

Hi! Yes, I'm definitely into Wolfgang/Kala/Rajan ^^ And I agree with you so much, we were robbed!

Well, we were generally robbed of more Sense8 content, which, worst decision Netflix has ever made, but yeah, we should have gotten the whole Wolfgang/Kala/Rajan story! I thought what little time they had was better than the entirety of You Me Her x)

To be honest, when I rewatched the show with my mom, later (yes, very brave of me, I know XD), I spotted a bunch of little moments and hints that the triad was starting to form, like when Wolfgang is laying in bed with Kala through the link, and he feels Rajan kissing him and smiles a little. The first time you watch it, it just feels like a slightly humorous scene, like haha, Rajan kissed a guy and didn't know XD But with the context, it feels like so much more!

(I think this gif is from that moment? but I'm not entirely sure, it's been a while)

Okay, now I wanna rewatch Sense8 XD

Anyway, it's great that you want to write about them! I haven't tried yet, but there are some really cute fics out there! I'd love it if you could send me a link when you post it! ^^