More random meme + question about ships and triangles

[salinea]

Jabbed from imadra_blue

01. Who are you?
02. Where on earth do you live?
03. What makes you happy?
04. Fandoms we share:
05. Do you enjoy reading my LJ and if so, why?
06. Interesting fact about you:
07. When and how did we 'meet'?
08. How well do you know me?
09. Describe me in one word:
10. What was your first impression upon meeting me?
11. Do you still think that way about me now?
12. What (or who -- this can be a character) reminds you of me?
13. If you could give me anything what would it be?
14. Favourite quote:
15. After answering all these question, do you want to ask me one in turn?
16. Are you going to put this on your LiveJournal and see what I say about you (if you haven't already)?

Otherwise i have a question about shipping in general for you people. I realize that one of the thing I often adore in ships is triangles. That is to say, whether it's romantic or not, I like it when there's other characters who are involved in the relationship between the two characters I ship. It's the hint of history I like in that. A dialectic of connections that tie together several characters, with love, hatred, friendship, kinship, respect, etc. Past histories that shape everything new that happen between people. Ghosts that accompagny you everywhere, including to bed. People who you fuck because they remind you of someone. People that you fuck so as to fuck up with someone else. Tangled, twisted ties - no men is an island, and no relationship is that either.
It can be as simple as Hokuto's involvement between Seishirou and Subaru, or Seishirou and Fuuma's unrelanting presence to whomever ship KamuixSubaru.
Back when I was in BuffyxSpike, for me, Spike's involvement with Drusila and both Spike and Buffy's ties to Angel were a very big part of the appeal of the ship.
My liking of TatsumixWatari stems a lot from my liking of TatsumixTsuzuki, I see one ship as an outgrow of the other. A continuum if you will.
With my shipping of Remus and Snape, I like the fact that both men have a rather lauded history, which includes other person. Sirius is often (alive or not) going to be a presence in between, James and Lucius also might be.
My points is, I have the impression this fondness is not very popular in Fandom. I can think of fics with those, of course, and fics I adored, but another trend in shipping is to propone the pairing you like best so much that is has to be the, well, One True Pairing. Which leaves very little room for other characters in between, especially if their involvement was also romantic. Which includes bashing past partners and rival pairings in an effort to erase these ghosts and, I suppose, make the characters of the pairing closer and Truer. A lot of the biggest shipping wars thus occur between rival pairings. BuffyxAngel vs BuffyxSpike; SeishirouxSubaru vs SubaruxKamui etc. Anyway, I'm not here to critic this attitude (criticizable as it is) but more to point to it as a symptom of one of the effect of shipping one relationship between two persons as being higher and above everything else that they might have.

So, am I alone who finds past (or rival, I like a well done acutal romantic triangle too) a very big turn on ?

And why not seeing more "polyamorous" relationships in fictions too ? I mean, with the extreme variety of sexual behaviour that's displayed in fanfics, you'd think this one would be a relatively tame theme to put in fiction, but I feel like you see very little of it (apart from on the theme of character sleeping around a lot - which isn't exactly the same thing)
I don't mean of it as a threesome or a honnest to good menage à trois either (I don't really adore threesomes , they're too often either porn without plot and very technical at that)

Do you guys have any opinion on the subject ? Do you like to see triangles, romantic or not, in fics or not and why ? Do you prefer OTP or straight away OT3 ?

Comments

[catiechu.livejournal.com]

01. Catelynn Elizabeth Wilcox :D
02. Lee's Summit, MO
03. Baby animals, The Lion King, Franz/Albert, Meine Liebe, Kyou Kara Maou, Honey & Clover, watching anime with my sister, showers, being able to go to bed before I am truly exhausted so that I can daydream until I fall asleep.
04. Fandoms we share: Ones that I know of are Yami no Matsuei, X, xxxHolic, Gohou Drug, and Tsubasa.
05. I do. You usually have such interesting posts, for some reason.
06. I don't believe in ghosts or aliens, yet I'm scared to death of both.
07. I still think it was through the wank that went on because of x_100.
08. I don't know, how well would you say? :P
09. Intriguing.
10. "Wow, she's really loves Tori Amos."
11. Uh durr. XP
12. Uh.. Tori Amos.
13. A visit. ;_;
14. "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." - Oscar Wilde
15. Hm.. none come to mind.
16. Maybe. :X That'll be a surprise, I guess.

And I looooove love triangles. I'm an angst whore like that.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

woaw ! you've got a Mary Sue name !

06. I don't believe in ghosts or aliens, yet I'm scared to death of both.
that's cute, heh ^^

13. A visit. ;_;
Oh, i'd want one ! I'd want one !

"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." - Oscar Wilde
Nice one !

[imadra-blue.livejournal.com]

01. Jax, Jaxmari, J., Imadra... I'm confused. ;)
02. Tampa, FL, USA
03. Good books/fic, good food, finishing writing projects, drawing, good company... lots of things.
04. Harry Potter. Not sure if you're in SW.
05. Yes, I do. You seem pretty interesting, and I like getting to know new people.
06. I rarely volunteer to beta read, for fear someone will hate me for riding them so hard.
07. Not sure. H_E? Various meta and whatnot?
08. Not very well yet. :(
09. Open-minded.
10. Oh, look, a sane Gryffindor. I'll be damned.
11. Yep.
12. Hmm. You kinda remind me of strangealchemy for some reason.
13. Not sure what you would want. A really interesting book I found?
14. "Have a nice doomsday." -- Good Omens by Pratchett and Gaiman (I have many favorite quotes.)
15. Can't think of any right now.
16. Already did. ;)

I like triangles when well done. The problem is most of them aren't. But sometimes they can be brilliant. And some love triangles are almost demanded if you ship non-canon. For example, Anakin/Obi-Wan insists upon a love triangle between Anakin/Padme and Obi-Wan, same for Obi-Wan/Padme. But I'm pretty open on shipping. I read fics for characters. if it's believable, I'm with you.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Jax, Jaxmari, J., Imadra... I'm confused. ;)
multiple personnality disorder ? ^^

Oh, look, a sane Gryffindor. I'll be damned.
Well, in fact, I'm also utterly insane, I'm just hiding it well.

Not sure what you would want. A really interesting book I found?
That works for me

. "Have a nice doomsday." -- Good Omens by Pratchett and Gaiman
Whee ! Good Omens.

And some love triangles are almost demanded if you ship non-canon.
Indeed. That can be very fettering to the writing I imagine when you don't want to deal with the character. *thinks of RemusxTonks* But good triangles can be amazing when the writer is good enough to do it justice and not to get rid of the third wheel by killing or bashing them.

I read fics for characters.
That's also my main reason for reading in general. I might like a story with a crappy plot, no themes and a pretty flat writing style as long as the characters are likeable enough (which is why I like Harry Potter I suppose :p)

[prncssleia.livejournal.com]

Hi, dear! Wow...I haven't been in your journal, in a while, I apologize for my lack of LJ skills lately, but I really love the layout. The coloring is fabulous. ^_^ I have a thing for greens.

luxuria (She's an H_E Slytherin prefect, formerly undivine) and she just started an RPG, and wanted to use your Gryffindor essay that you wrote for quills_elite. She's collecting house essays to help the newer players get a handle on their characters. If you want to take a look, the RPG is located at incarcerous_rpg. Let me know if you have any other questions, and you would of course be credited.

Thanks!!!
*feels like a whore* :D

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Thanks ! I love greens too ^^ Those Slytherins always get the finer things in life :)

Oh, I'm flattered. No problem with it at all, thanks for warning me. (She might want to correct some of the mistakes I did in it though, I remember mispelling Lokhart as Lockheart among other things)

[laurus-nobilis.livejournal.com]

01. Laurus, Laurix, Loony Lovegood...
02. Buenos Aires, Argentina.
03. Books, trees, the wind, dolce far niente.
04. HOLiC, CCS, TRC, FMA, HP.
05. I love reading your LJ, especially the fandom sillyness and those insightful meta posts.
06. I can spell backwards.
07. I'm pretty sure I first met you commenting in Kiri's LJ.
08. Not as well as I'd like to. Yet. :)
09. Thoughtful.
10. That were smart and had interesting theories.
11. Yes, with a bit of crack on top of that.
12. X/TB makes me think of you. And anything French, because you're the only French person on my flist.
13. ...an ending for X?
14. "Imagination is more important than knowledge" ~ Albert Einstein
15. Can't think of anything now.
16. Sure!

About polyamory in fics, I think the main reason why *I* don't find it often is that it'd be OOC for the characters I tend to read about (when I read romance to begin with). While I do find complicated relationships interesting, I tend to go for the Meant To Be, Happily Ever After, anyway... Not necessarily in a cheesy way, but I want to see couples struggle and go through hard times and still stay together. The world needs more Arthur/Molly!

Sure, I know that doesn't always happen in real life. But that's why we have fiction for- I'm not saying it has to be completely unrealistic but, to paraphrase Bastian, I have enough of real life in real life.

ANd like I said before, it depends on the characters. You can get away with pretty much anything if you're writing about (certain charracters of) CLAMP, but I seriously doubt that Hughes is going to look at anyone but Gracia.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

. ...an ending for X?
lol, yeah !

While I do find complicated relationships interesting, I tend to go for the Meant To Be, Happily Ever After, anyway... Not necessarily in a cheesy way, but I want to see couples struggle and go through hard times and still stay together. The world needs more Arthur/Molly!
Oh, I like this outlook. Not the Meant to Be aspect, but the couples struggling through things and finding happiness together eventually despite it all. In fact that's one of the reason I like the triangle aspect. Because even if things didn't work out with someone before (because said person died/turned evil/is in love with someone else) that doesn't mean they couldn't find their happiness with someone else and worked through it.
It's one of the theme I liked in CCS actually. Lots of characters in CCS don't end up with the people they first fell in love with. Touya doesn't live with Kaho foreverafter, nor Yue with Clow, nor Sakura with Yukito etc. A lot of those couples I love (TouyaxYuki and Sakura+Syaoran which I certainly rooted for in the manga even if I wouldn't read fics for) found each other after time, because they took the time to know each others, despite adversities.
That doesn't mean that Touya didn't love Kaho at some point, and likewise for Kaho before she fell for Eriol, and that's something that can be nice to aknowledge even while rooting for TouyaxYukito. Does it lessen their love ? I don't believe so.

We don't know anything about the past love history of ArthurxMolly, or HughesxGracia, but nothing tells us that they were each others' first love even if they definitly are each others' true love. It could be nice to play with how they met and whom they might have gone with before that.

Sure, I know that doesn't always happen in real life. But that's why we have fiction for- I'm not saying it has to be completely unrealistic but, to paraphrase Bastian, I have enough of real life in real life.

I don't know if it's so unrealistic. My parents are still married and they're doing fine, even if they argue a lot. Lots of people never divorce even in this age when it's an easy way out.

[twhitesakura.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I think polyamorous relationships add tension to how characters react to each other. It's also a little trite when people write OTP and make the characters seem too wrapped up in each other, to the exclusion of the rest of the world. I think I write Subaru like that a lot, but really, he's a kind person who can sympathize and care for others even when he doesn't wish to. There are many types of love. I like triangles in stories, but I hate to see someone end up with unrequited love, once the "couple" is established. I've read a few threesome stories, but they usually have this dynamic where someone mediates between two opposites, usually rivals who can't stand being together, but who can't help but be attracted to each other. Sort of like fate, I guess. ^_^

As for why writers don't write more about these type of relationships, it may just be the fandom. There are established couples, or two people in a tv show/anime/movie who already seem close to each other. I think there's also this ideal about love, that two people can be complete just with each other. Of course, it might be hard to be in a threesome relationship, to keep the love equal between everyone involved, to stay away from jealousy and such.