fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #4721 ]

[ SECRET POST #4721 ]

⌈ Secret Post #4721 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

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06. https://i.imgur.com/EUBcdd9.png

I think it'd be really good if there was more OT3/OTmore fic out there but it also doesn't actually solve love triangles and it's quite hard to write well

So it's a quandary

Feet are kind of creepy looking.

If I'm reading your second paragraph right, that's not the situation I usually see? Normally when I see people saying 'just OT3 it', it's because there's two strong pairings involving one particular character. So, A/B and A/C, and people are saying just let A have both. I have almost never seen one strong pairing, A/B, and people randomly saying 'just OT3 them with C' because C happens to be their fave.

Actually, no. I have seen that. Star Trek TOS, with McCoy as C, because often it feels like the only way to get Spock/McCoy (or Kirk/McCoy) is as part of Kirk/Spock/McCoy. Okay, fair enough. That's the only time I've really seen that, though.

Yeah, this, or it's a case where all three characters have genuine chemistry together (i.e. Kingdom Hearts or Persona 5) and an OT3 would actually make sense.

Oh, I see a fair amount of 'just OT3 them with...' in the IT fandom (or 'just OT4'... or 'just OT7'...)

As a wee shipper who enjoyed banter/friends to lovers/the juxtaposition of the logic/emotion thing, I shipped Spock/Mccoy without Kirk. It's a rarer pair than either of the other legs of the triangle, for sure, but just because a slash pairing seems unsupported by canon is never going to mean no shippers like the dynamic in itself.

This. Half the time it's the dynamic that appeals. Spock/McCoy is an awesome pairing btw which I also shipped back in the day.

tbh i don't even think most fandom ot3's i see would even work as a relationship bc there's usually some massive emotional imbalance in the chosen trio. one pair of characters is always waaaaaaay closer and i have a really hard time believing that a/b would ever look twice at c, let alone want them to be a part of their relationship.

This. Oddly enough the only time I'll read a fic with an OT3 is when it's very onesided towards a/b and c's just third wheeling since I'm a bitter asshole and I like to see a/b power over c.

Agreed. I mean, I really like OT3 porn. But there are only a few ships I actually OT3 beyond smutty fics. That type of relationship has its own different dynamic. It has to be able to work with the characters. You can just shoehorn it in as a solution.

I've certainly seen the sentiment of 'solving' ship-wars with OT3's and... that logic never works out for me, because like you if I ship A/B I'm not interested in throwing a random third character in there with them. Hell even when I multi-ship I'll be shipping A/B and A/C as entirely separate concepts, not some strange scenario where A/B/C is inevitable.

But I also have very few legit OT3's where I think the trio could actually work as a relationship, most of the time my threesome pairs are for smut-purposes and that's it. I think I have 2 ships I genuinely ship as a triad? Everything else is porn, lol.

Yup. OT3s are mostly porn for me. But a few are genuine ships. Harry/Ron/Hermione I really only ship as a trio now, when I ship or think about that fandom at all. Buffy/Spike/Angel I ship all the duos and I also think they'd be a great trio.

Yeah same, I can list many threesome-ships I have that I'm into purely because of the porn-angle, but for actual genuine OT3 relationships it comes out to two at most. Eliot/Parker/Hardison from Leverage, they just work together so well and balance each other out wonderfully. If nothing else in canon Eliot is Parker/Hardison's Heterosexual Life Partner.

The other is a trio from a K-Drama where in all honesty, the show should have ended in a triad because the two male leads and the female lead kept playing emotional interference with one another the entire show. But alas, most K-Dramas do not go for the gay, would have been neat though.

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(Anonymous) - 2019-12-10 02:47 (UTC) - Expand

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nightscale - 2019-12-10 03:18 (UTC) - Expand

I like the idea of OT3s in theory, yet they're just never what my brain decides it's obsessed with, ever.

OTOH, I can see why some people root for OT3s. The whole love triangle trope is just so tired at this point, that in some cases I would genuinely LOVE to see a canonical OT3 develop instead. Case in point: Steve/Nancy/Jonathan on Stranger Things, after S1 came out. It's not that I shipped it precisely. It just seems like such a fresh, delightful way to go with that story line.

That said, if people are being pushy about it and trying to wheedle others into shipping their OT3 by, like, sending them unsolicited prompts and asks and shit, then yeah, that's pretty annoying.

Agreed. Also most OT3s I’ve noticed is a way to “no homo” the gay ship and when mmf ship it always becomes “awesome ladies and her boys!!!” performative. (and lbr most ot3s are the mmf variety)

That can be a risk yet. Personally, with my two OT3s, I want just as much m/m interaction as m/f interaction. We know Spike and Angel have slept together, and I love their dynamic. I ship Buffy/Spike, Angel/Spike, and Spike/Angel as well as Buffy/Spike/Angel. And with Ron/Harry/Hermione, if anything Harry is the center, and I really can't picture one of those three without the other anymore.

Almost all my OT3s happen to be mmf, but if anyone's at the center it's usually one of the guys. I didn't even realize they had that in common until long after shipping most of them. I think it's because "Male main character with one best friend of each gender, and the girl becomes his canon love interest" is a common formula in a lot of things. But I only ship them if the other two are equally or almost equally close to each other.

I've always been a fan of OT3s (and assorted OT+s) but I would never suggest using it as a "fix" for ship wars because if it was going to work it would have worked already and there wouldn't be a ship war in the first place.

I "might" suggest it if someone came to me saying "I like A/B but also B/C, what shall I do?!" But really, what are the chances of someone feeling that way and not reaching the OT3 conclusion by themselves?

Honestly, trying to stop ship wars is always a dumb idea. People who are so invested in "their" ship to participate in a ship war will never listen to anything that isn't "you are right and your ship is the only valid one."

I feel you. I have OT3s that I do ship, and if I like A/B, A/C, and B/C equally, then A/B/C can be a compelling solution, but if it's a love triangle situation, it RARELY feels good and natural to end in A/B/C-- if A and B are canonically in competition over C, I very rarely read their interactions as compelling basis for a relationship. I get that some people love the tension of a rivalry, but it just doesn't often feel like there's a relationship there.

I'm almost entirely a highly monogamous shipper-- I don't polyship, and when I do ship a poly ship, it has to be based on all parties having solid relationships and being kind of a closed equal triangle. When I'm in a ship tag for A/B, I really hate seeing A/B/C content using the A/B tag under the assumption that I'll like that, too, when what I'm there for is the relationship between the characters I see being together.

Honestly I can only think of one OT3 where the writing wanted to present the triangle as 'A goes after B, who is with C, flirting and tension ensues' where it read on screen as 'A goes after B and C, who are together, flirting and ~tension~ ensues'. Other times the OT3 solution leaves me cold, but more than that, being told it's the 'right' solution is just... not the case??

I'm not sure if you mean that you don't like A/B/C being only tagged A/B, in which case, fair enough, or if you mean A/B/C being additionally tagged A/B, because when I write A/B/C fic, I will tag it for all the relationships that are focused on. So I might end up tagging it for all four relationships that would exist - A/B/C, A/B, B/C, and A/C - if there is some focus on the dynamics between each set of characters.

When I'm in a ship tag for A/B, I really hate seeing A/B/C content using the A/B tag under the assumption that I'll like that, too, when what I'm there for is the relationship between the characters I see being together.

Yes, this, so much. I don't polyship at all, myself, so this has always bugged me. I hate trying to find fic for a rare pairing, only to find that the majority of the stuff under their tag is polyship fic that's been tagged with my rare pair's tag. A/B is not the same thing as A/B/C, so I wish people wouldn't use both tags like that.

People tag for what's in the fic, so if there is a substantial amount of A/B apart from the A/B/C they're going to tag for it. Avoiding A/B/C is as easy as excluding the tag for it when looking for A/B fic.

I can't stand this response either OP. I don't have any interest in relationships involving more than 2 people. At all. No I don't care that they all have chemistry, or that it's the "easy solution." I don't want to ship it.

Yeah, this. I hate seeing people go 'oh, these three are such good friends, I feel bad leaving one of them out'. Just no. Go feel bad somewhere else.

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