I think what you decided to do with the shading is great! Also, mad props for being able to draw a good-looking car.

Thanks! Drawing it was a real experience: I was basically expecting my rendition of it to fall apart during the inking or shading phases, and luckily, it doesn't seem like it did.

must suck for robyn. are there ever any situation where he feels that he has to play the one not involved in the relationship reflects some sort of minor role in it?

where he feels that [*the fact that* he has to play the one ... relationship] reflects

jeez, english syntax.

This wasn't a decision that was handled lightly. As far as parents are concerned, Robyn specifically suggested it as a result of how they (Robyn's a they) actively reject the approval of parental authority figures. (They had a rough childhood/adolescence, which ended in them disowning their own parents.)

For coworker gatherings (which Robyn is far more likely to attend), the nature of Clover's relationship with either partner never really comes up, since those events are mostly about Clover talking shop with his teammates. If Svetlana had coworkers/if Robyn had a job they'd have the opportunity to try out different beard-partner configurations, but as it stands, they just have the one.

sounds legit. but do they plan on keeping it like that forever (assuming that their relationship is built on a long-term basis)? for how long have they been doing this, anyway?

also, thanks there for enriching my colloquial vocabulary by two valuable new terms.

They've been living together six months or so! Their relationship predates that in long-distance form by several years, though. Keeping it up would be a problem if Svet/Clover were being pressured to marry, but Clover's parents are secretly hoping he'll break up with her in favor of someone who can give them grandchildren, and Svetlana's recognize her as a free spirit who wouldn't listen to their wishes even if they asked. It works out pretty well, given the circumstances!

As for future plans: Polyamory is stigmatized enough in society that Clover risks a falling-out in one way or another if they were 100% open about it, so it's basically either this or nothing for as long as they can keep up the facade.

These are great questions, also! I'll try to answer them in greater detail when I start writing longer stories about these three. :)

well, they're just questions about a great and interesting couple (can you apply that term to a three-way relationship?). love their constellation gender-wise. pretty thrilled to see and read more of them.

also, I know it's annoying, but what exactly do you mean by falling-out? like falling out of love or something along those lines?
this might be off-topic, but I think it's really interesting that the vocabulary you use which is challenging to me is not technical or poetic terminology or something like that, but just colloquial terms I haven't been exposed to so far. language learning, it's a never-ending journey.

anyway, wouldn't robyn physically be able to bear clover's children (or have I missed some kind of surgery they've undergone)? then that would be at least one thing his (I'm just assuming he uses that pronoun) parents would like about a revelation of the true situation. how does robyn feel about giving birth? and how do the three of them feel about raising children in general?

aaah only answer all this when you comfortably have the free time for it.

Aww, thanks! These characters are the combined result of a few real-life situations alongside a lot of concepts I've wanted to express for years, so I'm glad to see people appreciating them. :)

"Falling out": It's a real term; it means estrangement between family members or friends. Clover's family would severely disapprove of him claiming to have two life partners, and he might lose status with his employer as well.

On language: Oh yeah -- I was using "they" as a singular pronoun for Robyn before I knew that was a thing you could actually do. It can be pretty tricky sometimes, though; I have to structure my language as carefully as I can to avoid independent "they/them" usage after a group of objects or people have just been referenced. Epicene pronouns (ze, zir) would probably fix it, but eh; they're not for me at the moment. :v

On kids: Robyn is actually incapable of bearing children -- they were born without a uterus (XY chromosomes, insensitive to androgens), but they are open to the idea of eventually adopting, and would probably eventually make a good parent themself. Svetlana thinks she might be more into the concept of maternity if she was actually capable of having the kids herself; at this point in the story, she's accepted that it won't happen. Clover's not into the idea at the moment, but that could just be the result of millennial poverty alongside a lack of free time and a pre-midlife-crisis mindset. As it stands, this trio is far more likely to become pet-owners than parents.

Thanks again for giving me the opportunity to write all this :)

In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have used the term "poverty" to describe Clover's tight finances in the comments of a picture about his new car.
But, you probably get what I mean. :v

facultative car poverty.

anyway, super cool story you're building around these three. do you think you can roughly say within how much time from now you want to flesh it out? and do you think it will be more of a written story or a comic-like thing?

I'm stooooked

Oh, I only really tell stories through comics! It's a bad habit of mine. I want to make a bunch of individual stories that stand on their own, but also inform a larger dramatic arc. TCS can be seen as an example, even though it's really more of a silly prototype.

My comic skills will be taken up by the thing I'm doing for print for the next couple of months, but I'll be launching something in the next week or two to help flesh out a few of the background details. I'll be sure to announce here when it goes up! :D

yes!