Here is how the liars dysfunctional unrealized polycule dynamics primarily function; Sparia and Hannily are married couples, however both Emily and Aria were in love with Alison before she went missing which Hanna and Spencer are both insecure about because they both had complex psychosexual rivalries with her and especially Hanna always compared herself to her and modeled herself after her once she died and she’s always insecure that Emily only is with her as an Ali replacement Especially because Hanna’s ex wife Mona started seeing her because of her resemblance to Alison and even though Mona fell for her for real Hanna has never been able to see it that way because she felt too betrayed and heartbroken. Aria also has her Ezra thing going on because daddy issues combined with internalized homophobia and misogyny combined with his manipulative predation, which upsets Spencer far more than the Alison thing which she at least sort of understands. So to cope with their Spouses weird fixations Spanna are having an ongoing affair, which they both thought would be an unsustainable disaster but it’s going really well for both of them, they’re too in love with their spouses to ever leave them for each other but the arrangement really works for maintaining their sanity and they know they could be a great couple in another life. They also both believe themselves to be incredible at sneaking around / doing espionage but Emaria have known about their affair since like. One month into it, and they’re both honestly cool with it (Aria has complicated fucked up feelings about being sapphic but she’s probably the most well adjusted about being poly, and Emily just finds monogamy very confining and so thinks this is good for them. Hanna thinks dating multiple people is great in theory it’s just that her self esteem issues get in the way of her embracing it, and Spencer has internalized WASP guilt and shame about every single aspect of her personhood + is so very neurotic). Emily and Aria think it’s super endearing that their wives believe themselves to be keeping secrets from them which is part of why they’re letting it go on. While all this is going on Spencer and Emily have the most insane UST and chemistry out of any of them, and Hanna and Aria have an unspoken agreement to do everything in their power to keep them from having an affair because they just know it would completely ruin the group dynamic (they barely survived the Spona affair which was a dark and miserable time for everyone except for Mona), so Spemily keep up their freak behavior and sublimating said UST through intricate rituals in their married couple like arguments and divorce like 50 times without ever dating. Emaria and Haria do have more homoeroticism than is in the average friendship but compared to what’s going on in every other duo what’s going on there looks normal enough for them to compartmentalize and so they look downright platonic through sheer relativity.
