sincere | Threesome vs OT3

Entry tags:

i'm bursting with opinions!

Threesome vs OT3

I am about to state an extremely unpopular opinion.

Your OT3? OT4? OT6?

It's lazy.

I am getting really tired of threesomes, foursomes, moresomes. Not as an idea. It's hot! Hey, if Character A and B and C all feel like having sex, or if A and B decide to have a thing with C, okay! Fine. That's great.

But there's a difference between being sexually open and being in a relationship with multiple people.

I've vented about this before -- I don't like OT3, I'm sorry. It's not because I hate Kairi lolol or I don't like teh ghei. It's because I only feel two sides of the pairing. Sora/Kairi, yes. Sora/Riku, yes. But I don't really go for Kairi/Riku. But that's not why I'm writing this rant, because I don't like your pairing -- no.

While ficcers earnestly write OT3, I find that often, it seems like they only feel one side of the pairing.

How often have I seen something like this: "Pairing is Sora/Riku and Sora/Riku/Kairi"? Or even "Sora/Kairi, SoRiKai implied"? Answer: way too often. But that means your fic doesn't have a threesome. Your fic has a pairing, and you threw a gratuitous reference to a third person in there, or hints that maybe A and B are going to go home and cuddle with Character C.

But C was hardly in your fic. Why did you say this fic was A/B/C?

Laziness.

This is what it sounds like to me. I had this thought earlier today, when I was talking about FFXII -- I used to be very enthusiastic about Larsa/Penelo, until I discovered everyone likes it, and then it became less cool. :( Now I like Larsa/Penelo and Vaan/Penelo about the same amount. And then OT3 came into the discussion.

This is the mentality that I think makes a lot of people get into OT3: three characters are friends, and there's visible tension between Character A and Character B, and Character B and Character C. Ergo, OT3!

That's the lazy way out of a love triangle. Why decide which pairing you like better? Why hurt a character you like, or leave them out? Why should anyone have to not get what they want? Just throw them all in bed together and you can call it a day!

Is there any reason that fic was A/B/C, when it was clearly about A/B? Why not just make it a fic about A/B?

I'm not accusing these shippers of being hypocrites -- if anything, I think they're too well-intentioned. It's not easy to represent three people in a relationship: instead they try and present a facet. Almost every time I have seen all people in an "OT3" interact, it's been forced, stretched. Like, "Character C giggles knowingly while Character A and B have sexual tension," or, "Gee, isn't it great how all three of us fit one another perfectly." These are shallow depictions of real relationships. (Although to be fair, fiction is pretty terrible at presenting real relationships, period. No one ever argues in fanfic, no one ever gets divorced later on in life, no one ever makes mistakes in judgment...)

I like threesomes. But I haven't yet read or heard about an OT3 that I find even remotely believable. Yes, Sora and Riku and Kairi have wonderful relationships with one another. This is why I find it so improbably convenient when they all hook up with one another and become a perfect trio. People have lots of wonderful relationships that don't involve sex. But, I mean, why depict two people in a relationship and one person who is a mutual friend just having fun together?

There is this unspoken rule in the media, in the portrayal of fiction of all genres, that you cannot have a meaningful relationship with C when you're having sex with B. A threesome is the lazy attempt to solve this dichotomy: well, then all three of them are having sex, and no one is less important.

Except usually, someone is. Even if it's just me, the reader, asked to swallow platitudes of polygamous perfection.

Edit: I just want to make clear to everyone the working definitions that are applied to this rant and all comments thereon. A threesome is a fun sexual adventure. An OT3 -- and the subject of my ire -- is when three people are all in true love with each other and would (if they could) all get married to one another in the most extremely liberal ceremony I can think of not involving a goat.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

OT3s don't always work with me. Sora/Kairi/Riku is one of the few that does for me, if only because I've seen it written insanely well by people before. Therefore, I find it believable.

I won't start naming love triangles to be OT3s. Am I going to scream Goliath/Elisa/Demona OT3? Fuck no, are you crazy? Tamahome/Miaka/Hotohori/Nuriko! Uh, probably not~

I like OT3s, but only a choice few, really. Love triangles just can't automatically equal OT3.

lawl, true story. Goliath/Elisa/Demona *roll*

And I agree -- in some cases this is more plausible than others. In the case of SoRiKai this is very plausible. I'm not saying anyone should be ashamed of enjoying it. It's probably not even lazy so much as just... too easy. The three of them have a mutual closeness that makes it workable, as opposed to many other such pairings; it's prettier to say "And they all lived happily ever after" than to say "And Riku lived next door to the happy couple ever after." But at the same time it's more real, and I do appreciate that sometimes. Bah! Now I need people to flock to my door and sneer at me that if they wanted to write about real stuff they'd write autobiographies, FANFICTION IS FOR IMAGINATION AND THE LAND OF BUNNIES AND FLOWERS WHERE POLYGAMY IS HAPPY.

I just regret that I've never once read a fic that actually felt like it was about an OT3 as opposed to A) 2/3rds of an OT3, or B) a picture frame of some idyllic higher concept of love that's nothing like a relationship.

And again -- I'm in support of threesomes. Write hot sex, by all means! A couple involving a third party, that's seriously awesomely liberated and fun. But OT3, the fairy-tale "And then all of them got married to one another and were happy forever", I find it hard to rationalize that.

I'm a killjoy, what can I say. :(

You know, I don't think I've ever read an OT3, only threesomes. I know I've never tried to write one. I've never had three characters where I felt like all three REALLY worked together. Maybe two pairings, but not three pairings and definitely not all three at once. That could be kind of cool to see someone really bring that to life and convince me of it. So, um, yeah, agreed.

Threesomes are tasty. No objections there. I like it when hot people have sex. :D

But that's it exactly -- A and B have chemistry, and B and C have chemistry, and maybe C and A have chemistry, but when you put them all together, that doesn't necessarily mean all three of us fit together like puzzle pieces and we're happy as a clam. I'm still trying to think of threesomes I advocate not just because they're hot, but because I think they'd work together, all of them in pieces and as a whole unit. *wracks brian*

I knooooow. I can't think of any! *angsts* Someone mentioned Julia/Aldebert/Conrad to me once and while I can see any one of those pairings, I can't see all three together. And even if you could get them to have sex, I can't see them having a relationship. Not a functional lasting one anyway.

Raven/Stoffel/Cheri ..... no
Conrad/Yozak/Alford ..... Gods, I want to say yes....no

*sigh*

I got nothing.

But. Wait. *is curious* I thought you were just talking about how you'd like it if it was more in touch with reality. So maybe even if the OT3 doesn't work perfectly, that's okay, isn't it? I don't know a lot of relationships that work perfectly, but that's half the fun with writing them, isn't it? Trying to make it work. *shrug* I dunno, I think it's fun to try and see if a relationship - as awkward and jagged as it may be, at times - between such as you described could work; to see if I could, while keeping them in characters, write out believable reasons and scenes in which such a relationship would be worth it.

♥ I'm still trying to figure out how to do that well. I think I'm getting somewhere, but then, who knows, :] ♥

Gawd, please do try. XD If more people ~~put effort into it~~ succeeded, maybe OT3fic wouldn't be so annoying. X3

It really is something I'd like to see -- but I feel like it would be a massive effort. It's not something you could really cover in, like, a drabble. Someone would have to make a real, concerted effort to present not one, not two, but all three relationships in an OT3, and then the fourth grander relationship of "how we all work together"... And I'd love it if it could be realistic, but as long as I felt like the OT3 was developed, and really worked together, I'd be sold. There are a lot of threesomes I like, and SoRiKai is a very pretty threesome, but again, I've never seen anyone write it in a way that wasn't either too superficial or focusing on one piece of it -- so "OT3" has never had as much pull to it as, say, Sora/Riku by itself.

I think it can be done well, and I remembered at least one incident where I believe in OT3 (Juubei/Toshiki/Kazuki, from Getbackers, an OT3 which is 99% canon) but plastic OT3s gloss over interesting things. Like -- what happens if you're Riku when Sora and Kairi are fighting? Was there really never even a little jealousy, or feeling left out, especially if it started with OTP and a third person was pulled in, and no one ever writes about how these start, either. It's just sort of assumed that the magical OT3 mutually woke up one day and decided they were in a sexual relationship and then all that remained was fluff, forever.

I... totally got rambly there. XD

I agree with what you're saying, but you might not want to frame it as ALL polyfic is lazy, because there is some really awesome stuff out there. I'm thinking of PotC fandom in particular, where there really is tension (or at least the pairing can be written very easily) between... well, most combinations of Jack, Will, Elizabeth and Norrington. Jack/Will/Elizabeth especially... Maybe not them all living happily every after in a little house with a picket-fence, but as some form of long-term relationship anyway. I don't have time to go find specific fics at the moment >> but there's quite a bit of it out there (or at least used to be, I haven't really been in that fandom for a couple of years I guess)

I agree that there's tension between any two given members of those groups, but again -- sex because we both find you attractive, or we all find each other attractive, yes! Picket fence OT3 4eva, not really. For more reasons than just that you couldn't get Jack to stay in one place without nailing him to it. The tension between them isn't all happy; there's jealousy, there's agitation, grudges... A real relationship-style threesome is such a tricky situation that the chemistry actually probably backfires on them. So it's not lazy, it's just too easy to say, "They got over their problems and got married and lived happily ever after."

Hot sex, on the other hand -- yesplz.

I know, I said that the kind of "then they got married and lived happily ever after" isn't plausible, but it doesn't necessarily have to be that to be something other than just hot sex. I'm thinking more about the environment of the first and second movies rather than the third, but I think it is quite plausible and not lazy to write them into an ongoing three-way-relationship. Yes, there would be issues in it, but just because there are serious issues in a relationship that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Otherwise we'd have to classify half of all fic as gen...

I think you two are operating on different definitions of OT3. If you have something in mind that isn't living happily ever after, then...

Remember please that OT3 is an OTP with three people. OTPs are perfect relationships that Last Forever. Even though people have been using OT3 on icons in a bemused "Lawl threesome" sort of way, when

kay_willow discusses it here, she isn't -- obviously -- using it to refer to all threesomes. She means only the ones that pretend relationships between three people are Perfect, Forever Love of the type that is accompanied by flights of doves and sparkles.

Of course, I'm not an unbiased third party. I happen to agree with

kay_willow on all points, including the laziness.

Now, mind, no one's saying it's not mildly implied in the canon. If you want another canon example, check out "Superman Returns", which set up a very similar sort of triangle.

I'd argue it was lazy when the original writers did it, too, though. "We're not capable of dealing with a main character not having a romantic interest, and darn it, we all really like the woman already in a relationship, so let's have them make out and maybe imply a threesome would be the only happy outcome! :D It's trendy."

I don't often OT3 because, yeah, I often feel that it's somewhat unfair to one character or another. Like they're just tacked onto the pairing because the author feels bad leaving them out. The KH OT3 sort of... doesn't always work for me for that reason! I see it as Sora/Riku AND Sora/Kairi, with Riku and Kairi remaining friends. MAYBE EVEN THAT IS NAIVE OF ME, BUT I THINK IT COULD WORK.

I mean, my current obsession has a situation a lot like that. Character A, the way I see it, will probably end up in relationships with Character B AND Character C. Does that mean I expect B and C to suddenly fall in love when they don't interact much in canon aside from generic friendliness? No. I believe, though, judging by all three of the characters' canon interactions, as well as the canon's social norms, that the two relationships can coexist, however.

AND WHOA I MIGHT HAVE LOST MY POINT IN THERE SOMEWHERE. Anyway, that's my thoughts on yaoi.

Seriously, that's totally okay with me-- A/B and A/C, but B/C don't need to have sex just because of a mutual interest in A. It's even okay with me if that's the relationship! That is how I feel about Sora/Riku and Sora/Kairi... Riku and Kairi not so much with each other, but they're good friends and wouldn't begrudge each other Sora's affection.

I like the good old fashioned triangle, also. I fail at meme, so... BUT WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON--YURI?? Yeah, I went there. ~~Hawt.~~

Okay so I found your journal entirely by happenstance and you've pretty much summed up my exact thoughts on most OT3s. (especially SoRiKai.) ♥

I won't begrudge people the right to write SoRiKai all they like, but it seems like some people think that the only acceptable thing to ship is the OT3, because otherwise it's sooo mean and unfair to the character who gets left out.

~~omg stalked~~
~~omg agreed with!!~~

That's the source of all this -- I wouldn't have a problem with OT3 if it hadn't become such a prevalent and aggressive idea. But... KH has like three (SoRiKai, AkuRokuDemy, AkuRokuNami) and now it's spreading into other things and I often feel seriously like I'd be lynched for telling people I don't like these things. These are fans who are aggressive. Axel/Roxas/Demyx fans have steeled themselves in the fires of Mount Doom against all possible flames ~~because they know there is absolutely no reason to have Demyx in there but omg he's their faaavorite~~ and I see them often being not only defensive but outright offensive even in fics not about them -- someone posted a fic to a Marluxia/Larxene comm and included in the author's note a bitchy advance insult against anyone complaining about Axel/Roxas/Demyx. Whoa! Calm down. No one's even read the damn thing yet. And now I won't be.

Liiiittle off-topic there.

But the prevalence of "zomg OT3" is exactly why it's annoying. I have nothing against hot threesomes, but a relationship between three people -- it should be rare! It shouldn't just be because you didn't feel like leaving out your favorite character. :(

I agree with you that a lot of fandom seems to be really lazy in their treatment of the threesome dynamic. But then, I think a lot of fandom is kind of lazy in general. |D

And I think you're pretty spot on in that people are trying to fix the problem of the third wheel by making it threesome and, yeah, it would make a hell of a lot more believable and interesting fic if people recognized that there's going to be jealousy and issues between three people who are as close as Sora, Riku, and Kairi are.

It reminds me of a fic I recently read where the Sora/Kairi dynamic was disrupted because Sora thought Riku had made the move before him and gotten together with Kairi. Or another fic where the Sora/Kairi dynamic was disrupted because Kairi thought Sora and Riku were gay. I mean, that's good handling of the dynamics between the three of them, reocnigzing that there will be jealousy and misunderstandings.

But that's not to say that I don't like those little "character C secretly giggles while watching A and B make out" scenes...I just like them with a bit more set up. (or if I'm just in the mood for some really hot porn~)

I commented at the person below you -- what really makes me sad about "zomg OT3" is that I don't think anyone really appreciates how beautiful it is if Sora and Riku and Kairi stay really good friends, their overall relationship unchanging -- even if two of those three are married. It's kind of sad that OT3 is the only way we can rationalize love entering a tight friendship without breaking it up.

I guess it's as much of a fandom problem in general. I want to see less of perfect people in perfect relationships, snuggling; and see more everyday things. Balthier/Fran makes me happy because they don't trade sugary kisses all day -- they have awesome conversations, innuendo and snark, and have room for other people in their lives. I want to see what happens when there are fights... especially in an OT3! It's all too easy to unbalance a delicate dynamic like that.

--on the other hand, hot porn is always welcome. There's not enough of it.

Yeah, I think what you really are pointing to here is a fandom thing. I mean, your average fan doesn't necessarily think enough to throw their characters into coherent, thought out relationships. Your average fan doens't necessarily take the time to work out and think through the characterizations of every character within the series. Ergo, your average fan might not feel like easily writing that third wheel of the OT3, but not wanting to make everyone upset or having to deal with the "Zomg why you write Riku/Kairi? WHUT ABOUT SORA?" throw in a sideways reference to the three of them boinking and lo! Problem solved!

This is part of the reason why the only fic I ever read is from authors I know are good, stuff that's recommended to me by

rubyd or stuff that I request off of you and Crysi. Most of fandom doesn't really write the well thought out, in character fic, the dynamic, realistic porn, or the plot heavily storylines that I like. I've just kinda resigned myself to this fact and stopped searching.

A great example of this is a fic that I was recced by a friend a while back. It was something about how King Mickey had died and Sora had to go fill in for him, but throughout the fic everyone is glaring daggers and death at Riku because zomg, he'd given into the DARKNESS. I mean, so much so that he hadn't even been invited to Mickey's funeral. And, really, at the point in time when a fanfic does that much illogical raping of canon and common sense, I put it down and walk away. It's not worth my time.

...and this sort of turned into a rant about fandom. Wow. Um, in conclusion. Porn is hot!

If an OT3 is used to "solve shipping wars" by putting all three members of two popular ships featuring one common character together, it will most likely be quite bad.

If an OT3 is used to justify a hot threesome that the author in question likes, it will most likely be very bad.

And if any grouping, be it OTP, OT3, or what-have-you, is presented as the pinnical of perfection and glory, with happy sparkles raining from the sky and endless oceans of happy fluffiness for the happy couple/trio/quartet/whatever to bathe in...

Congratulations, hypothetical fic, you just made me want to vomit.

Really, it ought to be simple. OTPs are what the author believes to be the best coupling for the characters involved, right? Hence the term OTP, using the words "One true". So, an OT3 or more should be the same thing. All that changes is the number.

So yes. In all of the cases you've mentioned, the result would be a fairly bad fic. But on the other hand, reasons for preferring an OT3 aren't that hard to find, particularly the one you're discussing.

I, for example, am not that big a fan of Sora/Kairi, Sora/Riku, or Riku/Kairi on their own. I feel that in each case, there is something lacking. Sora/Riku/Kairi feels more... complete, I guess would be the word. So that's what I write, and look for (mostly, anyway). Not solely because I don't want one of them left out, nor solely because I think they're so much more "OMG PRETTY!" all together. But because in my opinion, it works better with all of them than just with two.

Just my two cents.

I totally respect that -- like I mentioned above, I realized I did have one OT3 (it's like 99% canon, Getbackers) that I far preferred to the original components of the characters. But there, the canon did the hard part for the fans: it showed them how these three people needed not just one piece of the threesome at a time, but all three of them together. In my charting out, the canon [virtually] told us that A and B were a couple, and then [literally] told C that neither of them could be happy without him.

This is the part I don't buy in most OT3, and I think your description is actually a really good example of my personal problem in perceiving it. You said Sora/Riku and Sora/Kairi feel incomplete to you -- and that's true for me as well! Sora/Riku, existing in a bubble, seems shallow to me. But Sora/Riku existing alongside Kairi, still being with her every day, exactly the way they should be, mutual best friends until midnight when she goes home and they go to sleep, together -- that doesn't seem shallow to me.

If anything, I find that far more beautiful than OT3. Your friends can be just as important to you (and should) (and might be even more important) as the person you're sleeping with. The idea that their friendship is so solid that one person doesn't fade off to the side just because two of them are in wuv... That's what I find beautiful.

I don't know. I'd rather see a more "realistic" portrayal of three best friends, two of whom hooked up, than the magical threesome that just happened one day and there's nothing weird about that and no one is ever jealous or feels left out. That sort of relationship is tremendously rare, and while -- again -- I could see it, as in Getbackers, and even maybe for OT3 -- it's way too popular and none of those people does it right.

That's my corollary. I will welcome anything if you can write it well enough to capture me. And as mentioned above, I've never seen anyone do it "right." I see it being "Sora and his lovers" and Riku/Kairi feels tacked-on if it's there at all, or "Kairi and her boys" (which I just hate), and I feel like Riku is never given enough attention from both of them to make a really healthy relationship. (Not "enough" in the fangirl MOAR RIKU sense -- I'm not even that crazy about him. But "enough" in the he needs this.)

So for me, it still feels lazy, because I think the alternative that no one ever writes is so much more significant than the OT3!! which is so easy to say because, well, they're all friends, why shouldn't they all sleep together? They already work as friends! And it's easier to just take all of that to the next level than to think about how that relationship changes. If someone wrote a really convincing, detailed OT3 fic that felt like no one was being neglected and it's not all pretty prose about how perfect their relationship is -- and I'm not lying, this is expecting a whole fucking lot out of fandom! XD I am like a tyrant -- then I would be happy to say, now this is what it should be. This is way not lazy. And it's beautiful.

I guess that's the inherent problem with an OT3 or moresome that OTPs don't have. In an OTP, things are relatively simple. You have two characters to keep IC, and you've got the feelings from both sides to make believable and interesting. That... well, I'd argue that it isn't all that difficult, but judging by the state of most of fandom, I'd be lying through my teeth.

An OT3 wouldn't seem, on the surface, to be that much more difficult. You only have one more character to keep IC. The problem is that this gives us now six sides to the relationship. To keep using the example we've been using in the discussion, that means Sora's feelings for Kairi, Sora's feelings for Riku, Kairi's feelings for Sora, Kairi's feelings for Riku, Riku's feelings for Sora, and Riku's feelings for Kairi, all have to feel real for the fic to work.

I suppose it's understandable how so few people can write an OT3-or-more well when you consider that. I'm not quite sure what the best method would be for it (still working on that m'self). But I wholeheartedly agree that if it feels like one side in the relationship is lacking, or one character is being neglected, the whole thing will feel incomplete. Rushed and hurried, perhaps. And of course, the uber perfectness is irritating in any type of relationship, as we've both alread mentioned, but I can't accept that as an argument against OT3s when pairings have the same problem. It's more a bad-writing cliche than anything.

I still read fics like that, because I enjoy the grouping nonetheless, and while I'd prefer a nice dinner, I'm willing to settle for fast food if I have a taste for it already (that may be the worst analogy ever). But if you aren't predisposed to enjoying the OT3 (or more) in question, then it's not surprising when you dislike the fics.

Still, I won't deny wanting the hypothetical fic you describe just as badly as you do. Perhaps more so, since I like Sora/Riku/Kairi in and of itself. But I'm willing to settle for what fanfiction gives me, and for what I can write myself.

And on that note, I should go write that Sora/Namine ficlet I was going to round out my response to your PandK post with (thanks for that, by the way, you're threatening to turn my OT3 into an OT4, making it that much harder to get right).

mwahaha I mean, Sora/Namine. ♥

You're right, though -- it's particularly agitating in OT3 because I have a problem with not dealing with a love triangle by just throwing everyone in the same pairing, but really the things I find most annoying about it are things I find annoying about all fanfic. No one thinks about it, it's all stupid fluff, etc. Improvements that could be made in this area to make me happy could be made to all fanfic and make me just as happy. XD

Meh, I'll stick to reading fun porn. :3

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Threesome vs OT3

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

From the desk of a serial OT3er:

Sorry for length~~

Are you kidding? Long-windedness is my specialty.

Re: Are you kidding? Long-windedness is my specialty.