Corpse Polycule

Corpse Polycule is the poly ship between Victor Van Dort, Victoria Everglot and Emily from the Corpse Bride fandom.

Canon
At the beginning of the movie, Victor and Victoria were dragged to rehearse for their arranged marriage by their parents. Due to Victor being incapable of saying his vows correctly and doing the ritual properly, including smoldering the dress of Victoria's mother by dropping his candle, Victor is so stressed out with the rehearsal that he intends to leave for maybe an hour and come back after clearing his head. However, when he practices his vows near some dead tree deep in the forest and manages to say them perfectly for once, he happens to put his ring on the finger of a bride who died there on her wedding day, believing it to be a regular tree branch. The bride immediately accepts him as her new husband, dragging him to the Underworld with her.

Hours passed, with Victoria's parents growing increasingly impatient and Victoria initially being optimistic, but then growing worried when Victor's continued absence becomes eerie. However, the town crier reports to the two families that Victor had been seen eloping with a dark-haired woman on the outskirts of town, everyone assumes the worst while Victoria is in disbelief.

In the Underworld, Victor eventually convinces his "bride" Emily to come with him to the Land of the Living, realizing that it is futile to escape her as she has friends everywhere buried beneath. Under the pretense that Victor would let her meet his family, Emily calls Elder Gutknecht for help who brews them a potion that allows them to return to the Land of the Living until one of them willingly utters the word "Hopscotch". Victor then tells Emily to wait in the woods while he's "going to his family", when he never intended to let them know of his marriage to a corpse. Instead, he wanted to apologize to Victoria for leaving her waiting. When Emily grows suspicious of Victor's intentions, with her maggot friend agreeing that he should've been back already, Emily decides to investigate by disguising herself as a living woman and sneaking into town.

She finds Victor talking to another woman through the window and finds out that Victoria is his fiancée. Though Victor tells Victoria that he is technically married to Emily now, Emily is furious at him and says "Hopscotch" to drag him back into the Underworld against his will. Victoria tries to tell her parents about Victor being married to a corpse, but they deem her mad. She then tries to ask the pastor if it is possible for a living person to marry a corpse, only for her to cause a scene, spreading the word further to Victor's family. Lord Barkis Bittern already had an interest in Victoria, but her almost ruining her family's reputation had him try to swoop in to repair it, with her parents accepting him as her new husband and getting them married less than a day after.

Back in the Underworld, Victor accidentally breaks Emily's unbeating heart when he tells her that he can't prefer her over the living Victoria. However, when his family's former coachman Mayhew dies, he gives Victor the news of Victoria already being married to Barkis while Victor was absent. Devastated, Victor goes to patch things up with Emily and seriously considers enjoying being married to her. However, Gutknecht tells them that technically, their marriage isn't legally binding due to Emily being dead to begin with when she married Victor, thus rendering "until death do us part" moot. To get properly married, Victor has to return to the living world, repeat his vows in front of Emily, Emily has to confirm these vows and then Victor has to drink poison to die so he and Emily can be together forever.

Just as Emily's dead friends prepare the wedding and rise from their graves to attend it, Victoria finds out that Barkis is a scammer and was only ever after her family's money, disappointed when Victoria tells him that her family is poor. Victoria then finds out that Victor is properly getting married to Emily and sneaks into the church just as Emily is repeating Victor's vow. However, seeing Victoria stare at them with a heartbroken look in her eyes causes Emily to prevent Victor from drinking the poison. Instead, she pulls Victoria into Victor's view and tells him that she can't marry him if it means breaking another woman's heart.

But just as Victor is about to reconcile with Victoria, Barkis crashes the wedding, demanding that Victoria gives him a dowry, else every living person in the church will die. Emily recognizes Barkis as the husband who left her for dead and cursed her to be looking for lost love in her unlife. So Victor challenges Barkis to a fight with Emily pulling Victoria away from Barkis. But when it seems that Barkis lays a finishing blow on Victor, Emily puts herself between them, pulling his blade out of her body and cornering Barkis. The villain admits defeat and drinks a toast for the newlyweds out of Victor's cup, then suddenly turns as blue as Emily and dead as a mouse. With Barkis taken care of, Emily gives Victor and Victoria her blessing. But Victor still wants to marry her, he promised her. Emily reminds him that he kept his promise by lifting her curse and she steps into the moonlight, with Victor and Victoria happily watching her turn into a swarm of moths, free from her earthly burdens.

Fanon
Due to the constant fighting between EverDort and Vemily, some fans have argued for the throuple as an alternative, given that they all like and support each other by the end of the story. Some stories have both Victor and Victoria drink from the poison, but others have Emily come back to life after her curse had been lifted or simply stick around.

Fandom

 * FAN FICTION