Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- CA
Yeah, harem stories are typically just, "hey, I want to depict all of these possible relationships instead of just choosing one." There's nothing very compelling there, and it's hard to tie them into any sort of theme.
Only good harem story I've read is Sevens, because it actually ties into the themes (family, loss, duty), because the MC wants no part of it, and because it ultimately ends in tragedy. (Of the "this isn't the life I wanted" sort, rather than the "oh god she's got a knife" type, that is.)
- Location
- Online
CRX: "Hey! 'Know what proper laws are' is ours!"
- Location
- The United States
- Pronouns
- He/They
- Location
- Greece
While that is true, several (unfortunately not all or even most, ffs writers) harem stories do try to have their cake and eat it by making sure its all consensual, nothing icky going on unless you count the protagonist being awesome. It still hurts the story and it tends to be sexist, but its not the icky thing it almost always is in real life.
I agree that this story is more realistic than that though, so you are probably right.
[X] Defend the Geomantic Forts (Defensive Mission, Objective: Hold the Line, Defend production students, Survive)
- Location
- The Temple of the Winds
Let's not forget that there's also a difference between one guy and two girls (or even three), that I could see as maybe see working in the right circumstances and with the right amount of extra time and effort... and the ridiculousness that is usually portraited in these stories of one guy and seven, twelve or fifteen girls who always end up as little more than a walking trope with tits slapped on...
- Location
- The United States
- Pronouns
- He/They
Honestly we're all being silly here by conflating romance and marriage.
For Nobles in the Empire that's literally mixing business and pleasure.
For Nobles in the Empire that's literally mixing business and pleasure.
- Location
- Fabulously Rainbow Ireland
Who cares about "tieing them into any sense of theme" when a lot of people just want to read about cute romantic fluff and don't want to read yet another stupid "love triangle" where including any additional girl or guy interested in the protagonist is a waste of time because they're doomed to lose to the main love interest and only develop unrequited feelings for the protagonist for drama or fanservice or invoking pathos for their unrequited love as they hopelessly pine for the protagonist and selflessly help them hook up with their "true love".
That just sounds like yet another boring goody goody MC obsessing over his TWU WUV and whining about how all these other fun and interesting characters want to hook up with him and how "terrible" it is and is totally immune to any and all seduction attempts no matter what. It's really not very believable or more "realistic" than the opposite in the slightest.
Jesus Christ can you people stop shitting on Polyamory and acting like every relationship involving multiple people is some screwed up old-fashioned imperial harem where women are forcibly stuck in the relationship and incapable of getting along with each other?
It's frigging 2020, not 1950, Monogamous marriage is not the only workable, happy and longlasting possible relationship and the alternative is not the caricature of abusive religiously endorsed polygamy that gets trotted out when people bring up Polyamory to get told it's "bad"/"unworkable"/"abusive"/"offensive to women" etc etc.
I'm actually really freaking insulted on behalf of a number of my online friends who ARE polyamorous (some open and some closed) and are not stuck in some "icky" thing with "incredible power disparity with blurred consent/duress issues" that it "almost always is (in real life)".......
- Location
- Greece
What... are you talking about? The posts you quoted didn't shit at polyamory at all. One expressed dubiousness on a specific ratio on polyamory being at all workable without power disparity, (7 married to 1, with the 7 having no other relationships) the other disagreed with it saying that, at least in fiction, it can be workable. Neither post did what was accused here?
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Speaking as a polyamorous person myself, I was not at all offended by dunking on harem stories. Polyamory in real life is basically never the "harem" model; the sorts of harems you see in fiction have as much to do with plural relationships IRL as heterosexual porn has to do with real-life heterosexual relationships. I'm involved with four people at varying levels of seriousness; all of them are dating other people besides me or each other. This has zero resemblance to a harem; insofar as anyone is the "center" of a harem in my relationships, it's definitely not me.
If anything, Threads of Destiny does a great job of representing real-life plural relationships, because it involves a lot of spreadsheets, scheduling things months in advance, and shifting around "AP" in response to unforeseen circumstances so that nobody is neglected.
If anything, Threads of Destiny does a great job of representing real-life plural relationships, because it involves a lot of spreadsheets, scheduling things months in advance, and shifting around "AP" in response to unforeseen circumstances so that nobody is neglected.
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- Location
- The United States
- Pronouns
- He/They
I explicitly said that moral polygamy* was absolutely possible.
Let me be clear, my default assumption when someone says the word "harem" is the historical definition of the word: a population of people which are monogamous towards one person who is open and who jealously guards the exclusivity of their partners and often keeps them literally captive to do so.
The second most often context I see is juvenile sex fantasy that views the partners mostly as objects to be collected. They're fairly gross, the former author of one says with regret.
*I dont mean to exclude general polyamory, but was thinking the Sage Emperor.
- Location
- Cali
Don't worry, I'm pretty sure everybody else got that the context of the discussion was the harem fantasy in wuxia/xianxia/possibly also isekai where it's just one guy getting a bunch of girls and women. In the case of isekai, a little too much is also thrown in about the girls being slaves and the guy being a gentleman to sweep in and free them. So annoying when otherwise interesting premises fall into the same pattern.
I was looking at the Domain Rank Requirements
F-900 XP
E-1100 XP, Integrate an art with Domain Weapon
D-1400 XP 1 Advanced Insight
C-1700 XP, Green 5
(B-2000 XP, Green 6, Master and Integrate Domain Weapon)
A- 2000 XP, Green 7
At green 6 will ling qi domain weapon stop being fisical and become a complete spiritual part of the domain ?
Will stop having hit points?
F-900 XP
E-1100 XP, Integrate an art with Domain Weapon
D-1400 XP 1 Advanced Insight
C-1700 XP, Green 5
(B-2000 XP, Green 6, Master and Integrate Domain Weapon)
A- 2000 XP, Green 7
At green 6 will ling qi domain weapon stop being fisical and become a complete spiritual part of the domain ?
Will stop having hit points?
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
I don't think we know. We are a long ways away from having a domain rank of B though. It likely won't come up for a while.
- Location
- Finland
And i'm saying we should not follow their example.