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This was an idea I came up with years ago that I've finally taken to writing. I'm not completely sure of the direction this'll go in yet besides the original conflict I have planned, but I hope you enjoy reading!
It might be a bit confusing at first and an adjustment to understand so here's a small explanation:
In Wonderland the Queen of Hearts normally has a harem with one person taking the place of 'King of Hearts' from inside the harem. 'King' is just a title and nothing more. There are no special privileges awarded to the title because all of the harem wives are considered right beneath the Queen in power already.
In the past, the harem was set by the ruling Queen of Hearts for the future Queen of Hearts, but as generations have passed, now the future Queen of Hearts gets to decide her own harem. It is considered common courtesy and extremely respectful and loving to allow your mother to pick a single member of your harem.
There are no restrictions on who can be in your harem, mainly because there are few restrictions in Wonderland. Both men and women can be a 'harem wife' the same way either a man or a woman could be named 'King of Hearts’. Titles aren't set to gender in any way.
Since Lizzie has grown a lot in Ever After High during her years when she was to make her harem choices, she decided to do so there, which is still following her destiny. She makes sure everyone she asks understands what she's asking of them before she accepts them as her harem wife.
A harem wife is extremely personal and includes a relationship of full trust and unconditional love.
Lizzie loves all of her wives equally, no matter what other students might say, she isn't forcing them either. Each person is 100% allowed to say no, and in reality, there's an entire ceremony and vows to say when it comes to this that proves how dedicated Lizzie promises to be and this normally only happens after she and the other person have had several talks about it.
The problem a lot of this that people have (*cough* Headmaster Grimm *cough*) is for one, relationships with multiple people aren't traditional at Ever After High, two, the Wonderlandians are affecting regular Ever After students and causing them to 'rebel', and three, they're expected to go back and live with Lizzie in Wonderland. The third is the most distressing to him, even if Lizzie makes it clear that it can wait until after their stories, but to him, it still disrupts the FairyTale World and it isn't allowed.
Lizzie doesn't take too kindly to someone trying to keep her from her wives, no matter the reason, especially when they’re discrediting and disrespecting her and her culture while interfering. And while this is happening, she's still in a very fulfilling relationship with her wives who love her just as much.
(I apologize if characters seem a bit OOC, I will be attempting to make this as realistic as I can while still fitting all of this in, but different circumstances cause different reactions, so of course they wouldn’t act exactly the same as they did in the show.)
Also to add, the original character in the story is the daughter of Hercules and Megara (Iole Strength). She’ll obviously be friends with Cupid. Because Ever After High is so gendered in its expectations, she’s expected to fill her mother’s role as the next Meg. It wasn’t too much of a problem to the family, despite them hating the way that was handled, it seemed like a necessary sacrifice for her to attend.
Because she’s the daughter of Hercules, she was a lot more understanding and accepting of harem wives, since many of the other gods have them, though they’re a lot more limiting in the rights and expectations the women in the harem have. That’s one of the reasons she was sent to Ever After High though, to avoid being forced to join a harem by a more powerful god or future god.
(The gods don’t die, but more like they retire after serving for as long as they like. When they retire one of their kids would take their role.)
Some things in this may seem unorthodox, which is kind of the point in itself. Though some things involved might make some people uncomfortable I picture Wonderland and Wonderlandian culture to be a lot more open and accepting of a lot of things, and many things that are considered normal to them might be seen as, “wrong,” “weird,” or “sexual,” in Ever After. Different cultures have different norms and expectations.
Also! This fic was kind of inspired by “True Love Loophole” by Sigmu that I read a few years ago. I loved the depiction of a separate Wonderlandian culture that followed its own rules and standards, along with the mention of Lizzie having a harem and such. While this is still my story I did want to mention that’s where I got the idea overall. I really recommend it if you like Raven/Apple stories! It’s been published on Ao3, but it was on Fanfiction.Net which was where I read it a long time ago. Enjoy!