Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.
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@waterdweller oh god I hate the kidnapping plots. It's even worse when it's forced marriage or similar as well...
I then usually hate the resolution even more when they forgive the (usually rapey-threatening) antagonist...
I've come close to dropping some series because of that garbage
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@waterdweller I agree with you, but as I read on some other thread, these stories are typically geared for pre-teens and teens. I really don't understand it, being older than that, but apparently these authors believe that 12 year olds don't want to read about anyone over twelve. And they want to see that the 12 year olds are so much better/smarter ... than older people. Maybe people in Japan have serious complexes? Anyway, this would not be such an issue if the authors didn't expicilty say the characters are only 12 and draw them as such. I pretty much just pretend all the characters are 10 yrs older and it usually it more reasonable. Oh, a 12 year old has their own apartment and cooks for themselves and blah blah ... suuuurrrre. But, a 22 yr old, okay.
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I do agree that more than one (maybe 2 or 3 max) love interests is pretty dumb. I don't know what idiot thinks they could possibly keep up with that. I have been married a long time and can tell you that more than one would have probably made me kill myself years ago. Anyway, I beleive historically the nobles/king did have more than one wife (see Apothecary Diaries), but I believe it was limited to like 3 or 4 max and strictly regulated as regards to who inherits... So this harem thing, like Realist Hero and Spirit Chronicles with a dozen or so "love" interest is just dumb.
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@christopher-lamay said in Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.:
Anyway, I beleive historically the nobles/king did have more than one wife (see Apothecary Diaries), but I believe it was limited to like 3 or 4 max and strictly regulated as regards to who inherits... So this harem thing, like Realist Hero and Spirit Chronicles with a dozen or so "love" interest is just dumb.
Historically harems existed, but they weren't fair or equal relationships as LN often try to depict them. There was always a significant imbalance of power, and love had very little to do with it.
Bookworm and Apothecary diaries are those random outliers. I can't imagine having the bandwidth for anything else if I was truly caring for the emotional needs of 2 other people plus "working".
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@christopher-lamay I've seen a few western works were the kid hero(es) end up outdoing all the adults around them... The most famous one probably being Harry Potter. It doesn't veer as far into Adults are Useless territory as some of the others, but when you've committed to writing a kid/teen hero, you really can't avoid having them outperform the adults at some point...
@salientmind Bookworm's an especially good example there, since I don't think we've seen any of the multi-wife men actually in love with more than one of their wives (with the others usually being political or economic matches).
@Folker46 I've heard the 'anime girls are ruining our youth!' claims before, and I'll be honest, it's just a 'new media are EVIL!' style urban legend, like Rock and Roll makes teens into hooligans! or DOOM creates school shooters!. Japan's birth rate is declining, true, and their media does push some unrealistic beauty standards... but those are hardly unique to Japan. Take a look at Instagram, or any of the many scandals about airbrushed photos in magazines.
What does drop the birth rate in developed nations... well, there are a few factors, but it boils down to this: The transition from a society where it's more or less mandatory for a woman to have children, to one where they can increasingly decide to do other things with their life. Every woman that takes the option to not churn out kids drops the average birth rate that little bit more.
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Let's avoid going down the real world politics route here. (anymore than we already have)
Let's keep this topic on track.
Thank you
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@myskaros said in [Hate on what you Love.
And not just the size, but the fluid mechanics behind how their shape varies depending on angle/brightness/wind speed/etc.
If it was actual fluid mechanics I'd be interested, but usually it is ignorant enough to end up uncanny valley or that feeling you get when the author hasn't done enough research. For all the attention on boobs, so little of it is insightful or observant.
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@strangeattractor said in Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.:
@myskaros said in [Hate on what you Love.
And not just the size, but the fluid mechanics behind how their shape varies depending on angle/brightness/wind speed/etc.
If it was actual fluid mechanics I'd be interested, but usually it is ignorant enough to end up uncanny valley or that feeling you get when the author hasn't done enough research. For all the attention on boobs, so little of it is insightful or observant.
And so little of it is original, it’s like the author went to the light novel supply store and got a box of default oppai descriptions
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@lily-garden I know you were exaggerating when you said it earlier, but if I read one that took wind speed into effect of some boobs I'd have to laugh out loud. How would that go anyways?
"She had breasts that were so wonderful, that when you stand behind her you can feed a drop of wind speed" haha
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@kuali said in Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.:
@christopher-lamay I've seen a few western works were the kid hero(es) end up outdoing all the adults around them... The most famous one probably being Harry Potter. It doesn't veer as far into Adults are Useless territory as some of the others, but when you've committed to writing a kid/teen hero, you really can't avoid having them outperform the adults at some point...
I really like the way the JRPG video game series Legend of Heroes handles this issue. The main characters are teenagers, and the reason they get to do important things is that the adults are short staffed and some of the adults are off doing other important things. Then the adults show up and be awesome in dramatic moments as they reveal the results of what they've been up to. Yes, sometimes the kids outperform them, but they also have their time to shine and they sometimes provide needed support. It's so much better than when a story keeps the adults ignorant, or corrupt, or incompetent.
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@waterdweller said in Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.:
I've realised that nothing destroys the romantic tension between two characters like adding a third
For me, I don't care about the romance of harems so much as the sheer mechanics.
I guess when you're a 13 year-old boy, the idea of sleeping in bed with a bunch of pretty girls sounds fun. But in reality, skin-to-skin touching gets sweaty and uncomfortable after about 5 minutes, and finding a spot for all your limbs is awkward, and long hair is ticklish, and most people fart in their sleep, and being sandwiched between multiple bodies unable to adjust your position would be torture after an hour or two.
Honestly, all those multiparty napping scenes just leave me feeling exhausted - "Jesus, that can't be very restful".
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@unknownmat That was great on Demon Lord Retry. He was sleeping with the two (really daughter figures) by his side and the third one on top of him and he thought "How am I going to get any sleep like this."
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@unknownmat this has always blown my mind. Humans produce ALOT of heat, and these people are practically sleeping in a pile like puppies. Someone is going to pass out. It's going to be hot, sticky and gross.
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@salientmind Well, the grass is always greener on the other side, as they say. A man sleeping alone may dream of sleeping in a pile of women; A man sleeping in a pile of women will dream of having his own bed :)
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@kuali said in Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.:
A man sleeping in a pile of women will dream of having his own bed
Heh, yeah. Have you ever noticed that in old US TV shows the bedroom will have two twin beds instead of a single queen or king? Presumably this is because they didn't want to (or couldn't) depict two people sleeping in the same bed.
But, while watching one such older show recently, all I found myself thinking was, "What a great idea! No sweaty sheet. No flailing limbs. No jostling. I'd love to switch to a pair of twin beds." I just need to find a way to break it to my wife...
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It's a little early for Festivus, but alright.
@strangeattractor said in Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.:
If it was actual fluid mechanics I'd be interested, but usually it is ignorant enough to end up uncanny valley or that feeling you get when the author hasn't done enough research. For all the attention on boobs, so little of it is insightful or observant.
Like Highschool of the Dead?
@rsog412 said in Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.:
@rahul-balaggan said in Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.:
Every single fighting scene, in any Light Novel.
Just a personal thing, but no matter what LN it has been, any fighting scene with actual details on the fight are not my cup of tea.
Writing good fight scenes is hard. The best advice I was given for writing them is that by and large, your reader does not care about the fight. If you write a fight scene and try to make that scene be about the fight, that's as bad as writing a conversation scene about small talk and the mechanics of conversation. A good fight scene needs to center the characters and what they care about, more than the fight.
I'll counter with Danmachi/Infinite Dendrogram and Monogatari.
I agree, mostly, though. Most fight scenes are not good. The monogatari point, well, the entire series is small talk. Outside of light novels, my favorite fight scenes are probably in ELLC. Being a shapeshifting monster, Boxxy has some really interesting fights.
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@unknownmat said in Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.:
But, while watching one such older show recently, all I found myself thinking was, "What a great idea! No sweaty sheet. No flailing limbs. No jostling. I'd love to switch to a pair of twin beds." I just need to find a way to break it to my wife...
It seems that an increasing number of adult couples do what I've heard go by the term "living apart together", where they live separately, yet come together/visit each other on a regular basis. While it might take things a step further than simply maintaining separate beds, or even separate bedrooms, it honestly sounds to me like a pretty nice way to go about things, assuming both can afford to maintain their own place. Reduces the chances that they'll get tired of each other or start getting on each other's nerves, and whenever they want to spend a night or two or a week together, one can simply visit the other for that time period.
(Edit: and it just occured to me that this is completely off topic for the thread, so apologies for that)
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@waterdweller said in Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.:
(Edit: and it just occured to me that this is completely off topic for the thread, so apologies for that)
No worries. I don't think it's so off-topic if you consider that this same problem would definitely arise in any real-world harem, but rarely gets addressed in LNs (not to mention the internal bickering between the wives themselves).
People you are around all the time can really get on your nerves. As Benjamin Franklin noted, "Guests and fish smell after three days." Wise words to live by.
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@unknownmat said in Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.:
Honestly, all those multiparty napping scenes just leave me feeling exhausted - "Jesus, that can't be very restful".
Late Start Tamer recently had parts with his tamed monsters sleeping with him and his response over time as the cute factor wears off is so funny to me
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@waterdweller this is actually very relevant, because in addition to sleeping together, all these harems live together.
Anyone whose had multiple roommates can tell you that maintaining a group environment without emotions/sex is difficult. Meanwhile Souma has a bunch of wives. Most of these harem series rely on an very competent "first wife" to effortlessly manage the rest.
