Things that make you go hmmmm
Mar. 12th, 2003 12:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebratqueenVarious plot bunnies have put me in a meta mood again. I suspect this will be long so might as well toss the cut tag in now:
Polyamory. Being with more than one person at once. God knows plenty of us have written and read about three/four/fivesomes in this fandom (and others), but when is it truly believable and when is it just wishful thinking?
Obviously in plot what plot we don't care. We're there for the sex. The more hot, naked bodies the better. We're not reading PWP for in-depth characterization and good canon extrapolation. But when it's in a fic that's meant to be in-character, at what point does polyamory make us have to bow out and move on to another story?
For me the biggest points are reason and character. Reason meaning why do we have the polyamory, character meaning who have we picked for the pairings?
Though it exists in real life, and therefore can be assumed to be a character trait, even if not canonical, it is for me much like slash - yes, we can possibly successfully argue that a character is gay based upon evidence in canon and we can possibly successfully argue that a character is poly based up on evidence in canon - but that doesn't mean we necessarily should. Especially since poly carries with it a bigger burden simply by sheer numbers. We can argue slash very easily when canon gives us two men or two women who have a clear attachment to and chemistry with each other. It's a single step from there to say that they actually want to have sex. Poly, on the other hand, adds another step. It takes, for example 3 characters who have exhibited various forms of chemistry and contradicts canon by not only supposing that they would act on the chemistry in the first place (step one) but that they would do so with each other simultaneously (step two).
Can this be done? Yes. But the odds of believability have now been stacked against us. How likely is it that both steps are true? Not impossible, but, so to speak, possibly improbable.
Which now dovetails into my two benchmarks: reason and character.
The reason why we're writing a poly story in the first place greatly affects the believability. As I say, if it's PWP then we don't care. If the point is hot naked sex then toss in as many bodies as you like. No worries.
But if the point, OTOH, is to show a believable outcome to what we see onscreen... well that depends.
One form of poly that's out there is what I like to call the gerbil pile. Take whatever combination of characters you want as a pairing - let's say Wes, Cordy, Angel and Gunn - and resolve all that tension by having them form one big happy unit that camps out in a single bed every night. Possibly after having them exchange wedding rings in a large 4-way marriage ceremony.
Can you do it? Sure. Is it believable? Well....
Eh, not really. I mean I'll read it. Heck some nights I've written it (and in various fandoms too). But I honestly rank this up there with PWP - stuff like this doesn't get written with "believable characterization" as the primary goal. Stuff like this gets written with a primary goal of "happy, schmoopy, sexy fic".
Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying you couldn't write the big Angel/Wes/Cordy/Gunn marriage ceremony and, for this situation, write the most kick-ass characterization this side of ME themselves. But it would be for that situation. We'd have to go into it assuming that this improbable thing is our given. Just as AUs assume that, as for example, the fact that Angel is no longer a vampire but is the captain of the Starship Enterprise is a given. You could read either story and, if they were well written enough, still recognize Angel. But you wouldn't call the premise canonical.
As a rule I tend not to read gerbil fic. Not that I hate it - as I say, lord knows I've written it, and probably will write it again - but because I need to be in the right mindset to enjoy it. To me this is a genre unto itself, much like AU, PWP, darkfic and so on. So I'll read it and enjoy it accordingly, but I'll also be reading it sparingly. I think the reason why is because few people that I've seen doing it seem to be aware of the fact that this is an implausible concept, so if the author really is trying to tell me that Angel/Wes/Cordy/Gunn + marriage ceremony = OTP... well we've obviously got some radically different interpretations of the characters and are therefore probably not destined to spend a lot of time reading each other's stuff ;)
Which isn't to say that you can't ever do poly plausibly. That's when, for me, characters come into play.
Some characters on the show do lend themselves to poly. The poly nature of Angelus/Darla/Dru/Spike is pretty much canon. Of course now much time the boys spent with each other can be up for debate, but it's pretty clear during the course of the show that Angelus spent time with both Darla and Dru.
And even if canon wasn't supporting it - they're soulless vampires. It's hard to believe that evil like the fang gang would do every nasty deed they could think of but hesitate at sharing a bed with more than one person because that would be wrong [tm Faith].
Angel himself depends. During the Buffy years probably not. But once he moves to LA it actually does become plausible to see him in a devoted threesome. The reason being, he's so screwed up you could see two of the people who care about him most deciding that they need to team up in order to keep him healthy and sane. And Angel himself is so starved for affection it becomes unlikely that he'd turn it down when it came to him in spades (heck, he might even be arrogant enough to think this is the way it's supposed to be anyway, see also his "retarded fantasy" [tm Angelus])
Do I see Cordy being poly? Not really. For all her various plot-induced weirdnesses she seems to be fairly straight and narrow. Likewise Wes, the Los Angeles slut [tm![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jennyo], actually seems in his heart of hearts to just want a single, good relationship.
However, it's not that hard to see Wes/Cordy/Angel as a possibility. Angel's clearly devoted to them both, they were all devoted to one another back in the day, Wes is so devoted to Angel that I think he'd screw Angel if he was a border collie, let alone polyamorous, and Cordy might not think it her ideal fantasy but might settle for it as the best of her actual world - a place where she can't fully be with Angel, but she can give him as much as she can while still having something not unlike "normal" with Wes at the same time.
Ditto for Faith/Wes/Angel, with slight modifications to allow for things like Faith probably never seeing herself in a single relationship anyway.
Gunn in any kind of poly relationship strikes me as a harder sell. For all that he's got demons and murder in his day to day life, he seems to skew, so to speak, "normal". Even if he felt poly I don't think he'd be inclined to act on it, and even the feelings would be a tough one to do. That he has chemistry with Wes is undeniable, ditto Fred, but a Gunn who sees his ideal world as him and Wes and Fred? Unlikely, though it would certainly make his life simplier ;)
Buffy herself strikes me as much the same. Arguably she had feelings for Angel and Riley at the same time, but a Buffy who would cheerfully spend the rest of her life in threesomes? I don't see it. Willow? Yeah. Anya? Possibly, depending on how strongly she was still feeling about the concept that it's her right to have a proper wedding with a proper groom. Xander? Maybe, but I think only because it fits nicely into his desire to avoid committment, so for him it wouldn't be so much committing 100% twice over as easing up on the pressure by only having to be halfway there.
And again it goes back to reason. I can see threesomes with Angel because the various difficulties of anyone having a relationship with him could be eased by throwing more people into the mix. Conversely Buffy, to me, does not have that problem, so giving her a poly relationship with all the men she loves simply because she loves them all isn't really reacting to anything we're getting onscreen other than her feelings. I'm not saying that's not just as valid, just that it needs to be handled differently.
So, some semi-final thoughts:
Poly can be done, but it should be done while being mindful of what the ultimate goal is.
Some characters are more likely to be poly than others.
By definition poly is harder to do than other uncanonical pairings simply because the more characters that are used means the more canon is being contradicted.
What do you think?
Polyamory. Being with more than one person at once. God knows plenty of us have written and read about three/four/fivesomes in this fandom (and others), but when is it truly believable and when is it just wishful thinking?
Obviously in plot what plot we don't care. We're there for the sex. The more hot, naked bodies the better. We're not reading PWP for in-depth characterization and good canon extrapolation. But when it's in a fic that's meant to be in-character, at what point does polyamory make us have to bow out and move on to another story?
For me the biggest points are reason and character. Reason meaning why do we have the polyamory, character meaning who have we picked for the pairings?
Though it exists in real life, and therefore can be assumed to be a character trait, even if not canonical, it is for me much like slash - yes, we can possibly successfully argue that a character is gay based upon evidence in canon and we can possibly successfully argue that a character is poly based up on evidence in canon - but that doesn't mean we necessarily should. Especially since poly carries with it a bigger burden simply by sheer numbers. We can argue slash very easily when canon gives us two men or two women who have a clear attachment to and chemistry with each other. It's a single step from there to say that they actually want to have sex. Poly, on the other hand, adds another step. It takes, for example 3 characters who have exhibited various forms of chemistry and contradicts canon by not only supposing that they would act on the chemistry in the first place (step one) but that they would do so with each other simultaneously (step two).
Can this be done? Yes. But the odds of believability have now been stacked against us. How likely is it that both steps are true? Not impossible, but, so to speak, possibly improbable.
Which now dovetails into my two benchmarks: reason and character.
The reason why we're writing a poly story in the first place greatly affects the believability. As I say, if it's PWP then we don't care. If the point is hot naked sex then toss in as many bodies as you like. No worries.
But if the point, OTOH, is to show a believable outcome to what we see onscreen... well that depends.
One form of poly that's out there is what I like to call the gerbil pile. Take whatever combination of characters you want as a pairing - let's say Wes, Cordy, Angel and Gunn - and resolve all that tension by having them form one big happy unit that camps out in a single bed every night. Possibly after having them exchange wedding rings in a large 4-way marriage ceremony.
Can you do it? Sure. Is it believable? Well....
Eh, not really. I mean I'll read it. Heck some nights I've written it (and in various fandoms too). But I honestly rank this up there with PWP - stuff like this doesn't get written with "believable characterization" as the primary goal. Stuff like this gets written with a primary goal of "happy, schmoopy, sexy fic".
Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying you couldn't write the big Angel/Wes/Cordy/Gunn marriage ceremony and, for this situation, write the most kick-ass characterization this side of ME themselves. But it would be for that situation. We'd have to go into it assuming that this improbable thing is our given. Just as AUs assume that, as for example, the fact that Angel is no longer a vampire but is the captain of the Starship Enterprise is a given. You could read either story and, if they were well written enough, still recognize Angel. But you wouldn't call the premise canonical.
As a rule I tend not to read gerbil fic. Not that I hate it - as I say, lord knows I've written it, and probably will write it again - but because I need to be in the right mindset to enjoy it. To me this is a genre unto itself, much like AU, PWP, darkfic and so on. So I'll read it and enjoy it accordingly, but I'll also be reading it sparingly. I think the reason why is because few people that I've seen doing it seem to be aware of the fact that this is an implausible concept, so if the author really is trying to tell me that Angel/Wes/Cordy/Gunn + marriage ceremony = OTP... well we've obviously got some radically different interpretations of the characters and are therefore probably not destined to spend a lot of time reading each other's stuff ;)
Which isn't to say that you can't ever do poly plausibly. That's when, for me, characters come into play.
Some characters on the show do lend themselves to poly. The poly nature of Angelus/Darla/Dru/Spike is pretty much canon. Of course now much time the boys spent with each other can be up for debate, but it's pretty clear during the course of the show that Angelus spent time with both Darla and Dru.
And even if canon wasn't supporting it - they're soulless vampires. It's hard to believe that evil like the fang gang would do every nasty deed they could think of but hesitate at sharing a bed with more than one person because that would be wrong [tm Faith].
Angel himself depends. During the Buffy years probably not. But once he moves to LA it actually does become plausible to see him in a devoted threesome. The reason being, he's so screwed up you could see two of the people who care about him most deciding that they need to team up in order to keep him healthy and sane. And Angel himself is so starved for affection it becomes unlikely that he'd turn it down when it came to him in spades (heck, he might even be arrogant enough to think this is the way it's supposed to be anyway, see also his "retarded fantasy" [tm Angelus])
Do I see Cordy being poly? Not really. For all her various plot-induced weirdnesses she seems to be fairly straight and narrow. Likewise Wes, the Los Angeles slut [tm
jennyo], actually seems in his heart of hearts to just want a single, good relationship.However, it's not that hard to see Wes/Cordy/Angel as a possibility. Angel's clearly devoted to them both, they were all devoted to one another back in the day, Wes is so devoted to Angel that I think he'd screw Angel if he was a border collie, let alone polyamorous, and Cordy might not think it her ideal fantasy but might settle for it as the best of her actual world - a place where she can't fully be with Angel, but she can give him as much as she can while still having something not unlike "normal" with Wes at the same time.
Ditto for Faith/Wes/Angel, with slight modifications to allow for things like Faith probably never seeing herself in a single relationship anyway.
Gunn in any kind of poly relationship strikes me as a harder sell. For all that he's got demons and murder in his day to day life, he seems to skew, so to speak, "normal". Even if he felt poly I don't think he'd be inclined to act on it, and even the feelings would be a tough one to do. That he has chemistry with Wes is undeniable, ditto Fred, but a Gunn who sees his ideal world as him and Wes and Fred? Unlikely, though it would certainly make his life simplier ;)
Buffy herself strikes me as much the same. Arguably she had feelings for Angel and Riley at the same time, but a Buffy who would cheerfully spend the rest of her life in threesomes? I don't see it. Willow? Yeah. Anya? Possibly, depending on how strongly she was still feeling about the concept that it's her right to have a proper wedding with a proper groom. Xander? Maybe, but I think only because it fits nicely into his desire to avoid committment, so for him it wouldn't be so much committing 100% twice over as easing up on the pressure by only having to be halfway there.
And again it goes back to reason. I can see threesomes with Angel because the various difficulties of anyone having a relationship with him could be eased by throwing more people into the mix. Conversely Buffy, to me, does not have that problem, so giving her a poly relationship with all the men she loves simply because she loves them all isn't really reacting to anything we're getting onscreen other than her feelings. I'm not saying that's not just as valid, just that it needs to be handled differently.
So, some semi-final thoughts:
Poly can be done, but it should be done while being mindful of what the ultimate goal is.
Some characters are more likely to be poly than others.
By definition poly is harder to do than other uncanonical pairings simply because the more characters that are used means the more canon is being contradicted.
What do you think?
