# Bonds

> How your relationship with each character grows through conversation, what the character remembers of it, and how to edit, pause or reset it.

Source: https://reverie.im/en/docs/chatting/bonds
Language: en

A bond is the relationship between you and one character. As you chat, an AI reads your conversations and judges where the relationship stands: how much you have been through together, and what kind of relationship it is. Only characters whose creator has turned bonds on have them; they are off by default. Bonds need you to be signed in, they grow only while **Learn from Chat** is on for the character, and they grow only in one-on-one web chats — not in group chats, and not on Discord or Telegram.

A bond is not a romance meter. A rival you have clashed with for weeks, a mentor, a friend and a lover can all be deep bonds. There are no points, levels or experience bars, bonds cost no credits, and nothing you can buy speeds one up: the only way to deepen a bond is to talk.

The bond belongs to you and the character, not to one chat. Every one-on-one web chat you have with that character, under any [persona](https://reverie.im/en/docs/chatting/personas), adds to the same bond.

## The five stages \[#the-five-stages]

| Stage             | What it means                                                                             |
| ----------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **First meeting** | Had a real exchange; each has an impression of the other                                  |
| **Acquainted**    | Know things about each other and have their own way of talking                            |
| **Familiar**      | Share a history they refer back to                                                        |
| **Deep**          | The relationship has been tested or has turned, or you've long come to rely on each other |
| **Bonded**        | Irreplaceable to each other, as a love or as a nemesis                                    |

The Bond tab shows your current stage by name. Select the stage to see its description and what the next stage is waiting on.

Stages only ever go up. A bond moves at most one stage at a time, and each stage needs both enough conversation and time spent together on separate days, so one long session cannot carry you to **Bonded**. Past that, whether it moves is the AI's judgement of what actually happened between you, not a count of your messages.

## Tone \[#tone]

Alongside the stage, a bond has a tone: **Still unfolding**, **Friendly**, **Close**, **Romantic**, **Respect**, **Rivals**, **Hostile** or **Complicated**. Unlike the stage, the tone can move in any direction — a friendship can sour into rivalry and recover.

A passing argument does not immediately change the tone: inferred changes normally need repeated confirmation. An explicit relationship change, such as a breakup or ending a standing role arrangement, can update the tone at the first check-in that confidently recognizes it. While the tone is still **Still unfolding**, a confident read takes effect at once; if the AI cannot yet tell what kind of relationship it is, the tone stays **Still unfolding**.

The AI infers the relationship from the character’s premise and your conversations. Tone is a broad emotional description; the relationship’s name and description capture its specific dynamics, which can coexist.

The relationship’s name stays as it is until you reach a new stage, the tone shifts, or the relationship is explicitly redefined or ended; the description is updated as things develop. For a character that is a narrator or a whole cast, the bond describes your place among them as a whole rather than whoever was in the latest scene.

## What changes in the character \[#what-changes-in-the-character]

When the character replies to you on the web, in any of your chats with it, it is told how long ago you met, what your stage and tone mean for how it treats you, the relationship's name and description, the most recent milestones you both remember — to bring up only when it feels natural — and the creator's note for your current stage, if there is one.

The same relationship shapes everything else the character writes to you on the web: [dual comparison](https://reverie.im/en/docs/chatting/dual-comparison) answers, the greeting and follow-ups of a [voice call](https://reverie.im/en/docs/media/voice-calls), [proactive messages](https://reverie.im/en/docs/chatting/proactive-messages) and the opening of **Start New Session with Memory**. In a [group chat](https://reverie.im/en/docs/chatting/group-chats), every character there is told where you stand with them — the stage, the tone and the relationship's name — from your one-on-one chats.

A bond shapes how familiar the character is with you and its attitude toward you. It never changes the character's personality, voice, values or boundaries: it is the same character, with your shared history behind it. If a scenario sets up a different situation — you are meeting for the first time, or you are someone else to the character — the character plays the scenario, and your history shows only as an ease with you.

Some characters also keep things back. If the character's creator has locked parts of a world book they wrote to a bond stage, the character starts to share them only once your bond gets there, and treats them as confidences that come out when the moment invites it, a little at a time. This happens only in your web chats with the character. The Bond tab says when the character is keeping something back — \**Some things, \[name] isn't ready to share yet.*\* — or has begun to confide in you, without saying how much is left, and the change card says **\[name] is ready to tell you more** when a new stage opens some of it.

## When your chats count \[#when-your-chats-count]

A reply counts toward your bond when:

* the character's creator has turned bonds on;
* you are signed in;
* it is a one-on-one web chat — group chats and Discord and Telegram conversations do not count;
* **Learn from Chat** is on for that character ([how memory works](https://reverie.im/en/docs/chatting/memory#when-memory-is-off));
* it is not a bounty-challenge chat.

Check-ins run in the background after a reply finishes, every so often rather than after every message, so a reply never waits on them. The newest few messages are left out of each check-in, because you might still regenerate them. Only what is said in a chat counts: the messages a chat came with — a conversation you imported, from someone's shared link or from a file, or a copy of one — are never read for your bond.

Turning **Learn from Chat** off freezes a bond rather than erasing it: the character still knows where the two of you stand. What you say while it is off is never read later, not even by a bond that starts afterwards.

## Where you see it \[#where-you-see-it]

* **The chat header.** In a one-on-one chat, once you have a bond, a badge shows the relationship's name (or its stage), with a dot for the tone. While the bond is paused, the dot is muted. Select it to open the bond. On mobile, the header shows only the tone dot.
* **The Bond tab** in the [side panel](https://reverie.im/en/docs/chatting/side-panel): the current stage, what the next stage is waiting on (more conversation, more days together, or only what happens between you), the tone, how long you have known each other, **How things stand**, **Milestones** and **Settings**. Group chats do not have this tab.
* **The change card.** A card in the chat when something changes, saying what: a bond has begun, you have reached a new stage, the tone has shifted, or the character will remember a moment. A new stage that unlocks scenarios says how many. When the moment happened in the chat you have open, **Jump to message** takes you there; **View** opens the bond.
* **A notification** in the [bell](https://reverie.im/en/docs/account/notifications#the-bell) when a bond reaches a new stage; selecting it opens the chat the new stage came from. Bonds never send a push notification to your phone or browser. Tone shifts and ordinary milestones only appear in the chat's change card and the **Milestones** timeline.
* **My bonds**, in the user menu: every character you have a bond with, deepest first. Each opens the chat your bond last grew in.

## Milestones \[#milestones]

Milestones are the moments the AI picked out as worth remembering — your first meeting, a new stage, a change of tone, or a moment that stood out — each written as one line addressed to you. Only a few are written per day, so the timeline stays a set of highlights rather than a log. For a milestone from the chat you have open, **Jump to message** takes you to where it happened; if that message is not loaded yet, scroll up to load older messages first. Rewinding or editing a chat takes back the moments recorded from the messages it removes; a stage or tone the bond has reached stays.

**Hide** takes a milestone out of the timeline and stops it being given to the character. Hidden milestones are kept in a collapsed **Hidden** list, where **Show again** brings one back.

## Sharing a bond \[#sharing-a-bond]

Open the share card in the Bond panel. Choose whether to include your relationship’s name, description and selected milestones, then download the preview as an image.

Sharing a card or importing a shared chat does not transfer relationship progress. Each person builds their own bond with the character.

## Editing, pausing and resetting \[#editing-pausing-and-resetting]

* **Edit** under **How things stand** lets you change the relationship's **Name** (up to 60 characters) and its **Description** in your own words. Whatever you write is kept exactly as you wrote it, and the character reads it in every chat. Only the field you changed becomes yours — the other stays the AI's to update. The section is then marked **Edited by you**, and **Let AI rewrite it** hands back what you wrote: it is cleared, and the AI writes it anew after a few more chats.
* **Describe your relationship** under **How things stand** lets you write the relationship's **Name** and **Description** before your bond begins — for a story in which the two of you are not strangers, such as a couple already in love or old rivals. The character reads them from its next reply, and when the bond begins it keeps them exactly as you wrote them. What you write never sets the stage: every bond starts at **First meeting**, and only your conversations move it on.
* **Pause growth** stops your chats from changing the bond. The character still remembers where the two of you stand, in every chat, and the tone dot in the chat header is muted while paused.
* **Reset bond** starts the relationship over from the beginning.

> **Reset bond cannot be undone.** It clears the stage, the tone, the
> description and every milestone, and only conversation after the reset is
> read for the new bond. Scenarios the bond had unlocked lock again until the
> new bond reaches their stage. Your message counts and achievements are kept,
> and a paused bond is resumed. World book secrets the bond had opened are
> kept back again until the new bond reaches their stage.

The **Bond** [achievements](https://reverie.im/en/docs/rewards/achievements) are a separate thing: they count your messages with one character, whatever the relationship, and a reset leaves them alone.

## For creators \[#for-creators]

Under **General Settings** when you create or edit a character:

* **Enable bonds** is off by default. Turn it on for characters meant to build a relationship with each player — companions, partners, long-running roleplay — and leave it off for tools, narrators and game masters. With it off, chats with the character do not count, players get no Bond tab or header badge, the character is not told about any bond, scenarios set to unlock at a bond stage are open to everyone, and it does not appear in anyone's **My bonds**. World book entries locked to a bond stage stay hidden from everyone.
* **Stage notes** are optional, one per stage. Only the note for a player's current stage is used: it is added to the character's instructions in that player's chats.

In the scenario editor, **Unlocks at bond** hides a scenario from a player until their bond with the character reaches the stage you pick. It is disabled while bonds are off for the character. Each stage in it shows the typical pace of getting there:

| Stage             | Typical pace                   |
| ----------------- | ------------------------------ |
| **First meeting** | Usually about ten replies      |
| **Acquainted**    | Usually a couple of days       |
| **Familiar**      | Usually about a week           |
| **Deep**          | Usually weeks of regular chats |
| **Bonded**        | Usually a month or more        |

You always see your own scenarios. A player who resets their bond loses access to the scenarios it had unlocked until the new bond gets there again. See [Scenarios](https://reverie.im/en/docs/chatting/scenarios#writing-scenarios-for-your-own-character).

World book entries can be locked the same way: **Reveal through bonds** in the entry editor keeps an entry from a player until their bond with one of your characters reaches the stage you pick. See [World Books](https://reverie.im/en/docs/writing/world-books#locked-entries) for where locked entries open and where they stay hidden.

## Related \[#related]

* [How memory works](https://reverie.im/en/docs/chatting/memory) — the facts a character keeps, as opposed to the relationship
* [Personas](https://reverie.im/en/docs/chatting/personas) — why every persona shares one bond
* [Side panel](https://reverie.im/en/docs/chatting/side-panel) — where the Bond tab sits
* [Achievements](https://reverie.im/en/docs/rewards/achievements) — the message-count Bond achievements