Roleplay Tips - Multiship and Polyamorous Ships

Tags: roleplay, guide, tips, advice, polyamorous, multiship, multishipping, roleplay relationships, ships

The state of having multiple sexually or romantically committed relationships at the same time, with the consent of all partners involved. (from Greek πολύ poly, "many, several", and Latin amor, "love")

Over the two decades plus that I have been roleplaying I have been involved with multiship relationships. I have also had real life experience. I thought I would share what I have learnt as a way to enjoy this lifestyle choice in your writing. For me it is a way to explore my character’s history and enjoy creativity with similar writing partners.

Polyamory is a lifestyle choice that allows people to enjoy a non-monogamous relationship. Unlike polygamy none of the parties taking part are married. Each person is in full knowledge of the relationship and everything is discussed prior to embarking on such a relationship. It isn’t a kink and shouldn’t be seen as one. Many who do take part see it as a lifestyle choice that they have taken onboard to explore many aspects of their romantic or sexual lives. The word ‘polyamorous’ itself first appeared in 1992. It was used to describe a relation that was open and was accepting of multiple partners. Polyamory falls into two types; closed and open. Open is all parties engage in many partnerships within the same group (usually a threesome couple or 'thriple' as it can be named). Closed is when parties engage in monogamous relationships but have more than one relationship.

The terms primary and secondary may be used to indicate a hierarchy of different relationships or the place of each relationship in a person's life. Thus, a person may refer to a live-in partner as their primary partner, and a lover whom they only see once a week as their secondary partner, in order to differentiate to the listener who is whom. While such labels can be used as a tool to manage multiple relationships, some, however, believe that such a hierarchy is unfair, that all the involved partners deserve equal standing and consideration. Another model, sometimes referred to as an intimate network, includes relationships that are of varying significance to the people involved, but are not explicitly labeled as "primary" or "secondary". This is entirely up to the people within the poly relationship. A more common practise is to have all relationships involved in the network on equal ground.

For roleplay polyamory is explored in one of two ways; traditional polyamory and non traditional multiship. For the most part they are the same thing but for one big difference, that you can have the partners at different times within a character’s storyline but still are multishipping with more than one writer. Because of the time flexibility of roleplay it is possible to have writing partners with characters who feature both past and present in your character’s storyline. Another big difference is that the characters may not have knowledge of the other characters due to the timeframe variation but the writers and the readers will do. However, in this instance it is very important that the writers and the readers have a clear understanding of the multiships involved. This can be either by listing in character bios or by ship labels.

How to be a good multishipper/Poly person.

* Discuss all intentions prior to the relationship. It is a good idea to see if you are all on the same page.

* Be honest. As soon as you are not or are hiding things from your partner it could damage the status quo in the dynamic.

* If you fail to discuss any new relationship with any of your poly partners then you are cheating.

* For a polyamorous relationship/multiship it is fine to have one person as a main. However, it must be discussed with all parties involved. Ideally none of the participants should be married/bonded/similar. As soon as they are then it falls under polygamy therefore it should be treated differently.

* For a multiship where each relationship is taking place at different times make sure each time-frame is clearly labelled so that there is no confusion. Best way to label this is to come up with ‘ship’ names for each relationship.

* Each intimate act within the polyamorous relationships must be consensual. The moment they are not then it must be dealt with accordingly.

* Don’t force people to be in a polyamorous relationship. Any changes you want to make you must do it to all partners involved. Likewise don’t force a poly person into a monogamous relationship. Respect everyone’s lifestyle choices even if you don’t agree with it.

Relationship labels

Relationship labels are an easy way to identify relationships within the poly network. Sometimes they can be a word to describe the partners, usually a distinguishing character trait. Eg, 'ThunderFrost' may describe a relationship between Thor and Loki. Thor has the power of thunder/lightening whilst Loki has frost giant capabilities. Sometimes the label can be a combination of the characters first names or surnames. EG, Ethan Lockwood and Angelique Donatalla Belluci can become ‘AngelThan’ or ‘LockLuci’. Sometimes people will list the more dominant party in the ship name first to show the balance in the relationship.

Polyamorous glossary

Ship - shortened abbreviation of relationship.

Ship labels - names used to identify the relationships.

Network - the core group of partners within the polyamorous relationship. They can be split in various configurations.

vee — one person with two intimate partners who aren't themselves sexually involved

triad — three people romantically involved, perhaps an established couple involved with an individual

quad — four individuals, often formed between two established couples

N — possibly a couple who each have another partner, or two couples

Nesting - a polyamorous household where all partners involved with the network choose to live together.

mono/poly - where one person is monogamous but accepts that their partner has more than one partner.

Polygamy - where one or more person within the poly network is married.

For further reading

https://www.morethantwo.com/
http://metro.co.uk/2017/06/28/what-is-polyamory-and-a-polyamorous-relationship-6741253/
http://together.guide/how-to-love-a-polyamorist/


I hope this helps have a clearer picture of polyamorous and multishipping. Trust and honesty do play a big part both in real life and in roleplay. Once those are secured it is a fun interesting way to explore your character's story.



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RPL Writer's Corner Disclaimer: As always, these articles are merely suggestions and recommendations based on our experience, the advice of experts, publishing standards, and/or established rules of the language. People are free to do as they please with their writing. These aren't rules and the author has provided this in an attempt to be helpful to other writers and roleplayers. If the information doesn't suit you, simply disregard.


Kindly contributed by:

Ethan Lockwood
Originally published here: http://www.roleplaylives.net/blog/39048/roleplay-tips-multiship-and-polyamorous-ships/