So... Harem fics. Person X develops simultaneous relationships with half of the female cast, including all of the really nifty ones.
Well, the obvious thing would be for it to melt down in the various love interests deciding that they're not willing to share like that - but that's been done pretty heavily too. (Tenchi/Ranma the before picture, anyone?)
Thing is, tremendously poly situations *can* work, but they require *huge* amounts of communication and establishing rules, and setting aside special places and so forth, none o which these fics really go into much. Two ways to go about it, then.
- The first is that the characters have about the same communication skills as their normal selves. Everything seems to be going fine for a short while, because people are *trying* to make it work, and ignoring their own needs in order to make ti work, but then someone loses it and the whole thing melts down completely in a horrorstorm of jealousy and envy and frustration and shards of insulted possessiveness, with the main character protesting "but I didn't *do* anything" at least once. The female characters eventually decide that you know, he's cute/hot/ubercompetent/etc and all that, but it's just not worth the cluelessness and the drama that being involved with him causes.
- The second is that he *does* know what he's doing, in which case keeping everything running smoothly is a lot of work, that becomes more complicated as you add people and make the people you have more important. Eventually, he's spending nearly all the time he has running maintenance on his various relationships, and doesn't have any to spare doing things like makign decent grades or saving the world. He's forced into the situation that highly successful poly people with more enthusiasm than sense get into from time to time where he actually has to sever relationships with women that he cares fairly deeply about because he simply does not have time for them. Angst ensues.
Well, the obvious thing would be for it to melt down in the various love interests deciding that they're not willing to share like that - but that's been done pretty heavily too. (Tenchi/Ranma the before picture, anyone?)
Thing is, tremendously poly situations *can* work, but they require *huge* amounts of communication and establishing rules, and setting aside special places and so forth, none o which these fics really go into much. Two ways to go about it, then.
- The first is that the characters have about the same communication skills as their normal selves. Everything seems to be going fine for a short while, because people are *trying* to make it work, and ignoring their own needs in order to make ti work, but then someone loses it and the whole thing melts down completely in a horrorstorm of jealousy and envy and frustration and shards of insulted possessiveness, with the main character protesting "but I didn't *do* anything" at least once. The female characters eventually decide that you know, he's cute/hot/ubercompetent/etc and all that, but it's just not worth the cluelessness and the drama that being involved with him causes.
- The second is that he *does* know what he's doing, in which case keeping everything running smoothly is a lot of work, that becomes more complicated as you add people and make the people you have more important. Eventually, he's spending nearly all the time he has running maintenance on his various relationships, and doesn't have any to spare doing things like makign decent grades or saving the world. He's forced into the situation that highly successful poly people with more enthusiasm than sense get into from time to time where he actually has to sever relationships with women that he cares fairly deeply about because he simply does not have time for them. Angst ensues.