Discussion Friday

[geraineon]

Time for Discussion Friday again!

This time, inspired by my very rapid descent into a Chinese otome game that tried to be culturally sensitive by translating "哥哥" (older brother*) into "childhood friend" in English, what are your thoughts and feelings about incest/pseudo-incest in fiction?

If you enjoy it, why do you enjoy it?

If you find it uncomfortable, is it for all incest/pseudo-incest related tropes, or are there situations where you are more likely to be okay with them and situations where it's a squick?

(Feel free to share any other related thoughts. I trust you all to be respectful to each other's preferences in fiction!)

*brother, very loosely, because it is not always someone related.

Comments

[geraineon]

Mm, mutual interest contributes to so much of the delicious messiness I enjoy!

Re: SPL and QJJ, tbh these did not strike me as incest-trope forward at all. For SPL, there's very little yifu-ing from Guyun's end. For QJJ, they are all already adults.

Did the 2020 adaptation of The Message change the relationship dynamics?

[aurumcalendula]

tbh SPL didn't strike me as especially pseudo-incesty either (although I think I saw some people on Goodreads freaking out about the yifu stuff). Yeah, re: QJJ (and I think Hua Xiangyi is a bit younger than Qi Zhuyin).

We got to see their interactions more in general - a lot of the book involves unreliable narrators talking about stuff after the fact (the 2020 drama kept the unreliable narrators, but did more showing vs telling). In the 2020 drama Highlight for spoilers! *Lao Pan's driving motivation is desperately attempting to rescue his sister despite the fact that he has no idea how to contact her superiors (In the 2020 drama he's a burned KMT spy and she's a CCP spy. In the book they're both CCP spies by the time the story starts).*