Dimeric and trimeric nucleic acid dyes, and associated systems and methods are provided. Such a dye may form a hairpin-like structure that enables it to stain nucleic acids via a release-on-demand mechanism, for example. Such a dye may have low background fluorescence in the absence of nucleic acids and high fluorescence in the presence of nucleic acids, upon binding therewith, for example. A dye provided herein may be useful in a variety of applications, such as in DNA quantitation in real-time PCR, for example.