Conundrum

[general_radix]

So, I recently found Usagi Carter's "Wings of Love" series (at least, I'm guessing that's the formal name) after coming across Alan Gutierrez's art for it at least a couple months prior. On the one hand, it's pretty long (around 44 stories, separated into three eras) and from what I can tell there's some interesting concepts.

On the other hand...canon lesbians Haruka and Michiru are paired with dudes. I hope I don't have to explain why that's a deal-breaker.


ETA: OK, so, I forced my way through "Looking Through Your Eyes", the first listed story in the Silver Millennium section, which combined the above issue with another, and I think anyone who wants to check this series out for themselves should be warned the other unpleasant thing it does.

The story's about Haruka falling for her first cousin, who reciprocates. In other words, it's romanticized incest, and while the pairing is listed in the author's notes up top, you won't know that said pairing is incestuous until you actually read the damn thing. On top of it, while at some point King Titan and Apollo (Haruka's father and brother in this 'verse) do call out Galen on wanting to shag his cousin (AND HE DOES), this is framed by the narrative as an obstacle to romance, and Titan eventually relents because being with Galen makes Haruka happy.

Now, Mr. Gutierrez's art of Haruka's family in this 'verse mentions her husband [the General pauses and struggles not to vomit] as someone named Greggory, so it seems that this doesn't last? Either way, I have to question what the hell the author was thinking, treating such a serious subject so lightly. Did nobody in the early '00s question these sorts of things?

Comments

[hokuton_punch]

Eh, first cousin marriage isn't even illegal in all US states, let alone the entire world. As incest levels go, it's fairly tame. "Canon lesbians marrying dudes" is way more of a dealbreaker for me.

[general_radix]

I mean, true, but the way it's presented here and the lack of a note/warning from the author left a bad taste in my mouth.

The gay-erasure shipping is still worse, obviously, and right now I doubt I can resume reading this series knowing it's in there. I really, really hope that Usagi Carter eventually realized how awful that was...

[hokuton_punch]

True, that's something that I would prefer to have a note/tag about. ... judging from the site design, I'm going to guess these were written back in the 90s/very early 2000s, and fandom in general had a way, way more lax attitude towards warnings/content notes. (Which I don't particularly miss, but I also - love labeling and tagging...)

[masu_trout]

The varying levels of taboo re: cousincest in fiction is one of those things that's fascinating, because unlike a whole lot of potentially squicky subjects that get written about, there's a ton of variation in whether the people writing it are writing deliberately as an incest kink thing or whether it doesn't even register as potentially being incest to them. Where I'm from cousin-relationships are definitely Not Done and very much considered incestuous, and reading books from other countries or other time periods where cousins just got married off as a matter of course was a big, "...Huh, I guess that's happening," moment for sure.

(I'm reminded of when a Japanese artist I'm fond of got into Undertale and posted some Napstablook/Mettaton fanart, and English and Japanese sides of her fandom immediately started arguing hardcore in the notes about whether the pairing was incestuous while the artist basically went, "Oops, sorry, I can add a warning tag, never even occurred to me." Though that was especially weird because people were arguing about whether cousins were incest and then also simultaneously arguing about whether the two characters were cousins, so there was a lot of talking past each other going on, haha.)

[general_radix]

Indeed; me, I've noticed a fairly strong correlation between "uncritically consumes loads of romanticized incest" and "treats other people's boundaries as a theory" (and that's the best-case scenario), hence why I get real jittery whenever it comes up without being played for psychological horror/drama, and/or the author seems too glib about it ("incest is wincest!"). XD;;

(I've ALSO noticed that people who do the "incest as horror" thing are a lot less likely to act like creeps, which is at least half of why I like Tycho/Durandal)

(And huh. XD I'm kinda familiar with Undertale due to osmosis, but I didn't know about "Napstablook and Mettaton might be related")

[vulthuryol_majicue]

Definitely written early on before tags became a issue. I'm afraid I couldn't say what the hell the author was thinking.

I don't mind the incest thing if it is done right. Saiyuki is a good example. But I don't like forcing the lesbians with dudes.

[general_radix]

Wonder if any readers back in the day pointed at the latter element of "Wings of Love" and went "uh, what?" (I dread the day someone tries this with my characters...)