tempestuously | (no subject)

...I belittle boys' love? *blinks* Dang, I better go tell my Guardian boys that I care nothing about their relationship, which I've spent years/50+ chapters building. While I'm at it, I'll go back to the Uni and tell all my old professors to take back my A+s in LGBT literature. Because I obviously find it trivial and insulting. Guess that goes for you two, Sasuke and Naruto. Might as well tell Graham I've returned my slash fangirl membership card and am ready to learn all about the wonders of NaruSaku.

Screw that, I'm going to go read some Love Mode and then write some V-Day Guardian boi pron. Need slashy assurance stat.

/end lamer sarcasm

Why yes, being snarky is what I do best. Must you ask. XD

In all seriousness, making fangirls think ~~fight~~ tops all.

ETA: They actually managed to wank themselves. No,

quebelly, I wasn't in the middle of the arguement just the vessel. ~~Unless you count the part where I played in F_W and made a total ass out of myself by forgetting about the sockpuppet style. But you didn't read that.~~ Still, damn. I got nothing.

ETA4: I'm calm now. I think.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

...I think the entire point of the manga is that you say, "Holy fuck! He's 12!" when you look at the relationship he has with Soubi. She made him twelve for a reason, and it probably wasn't to normalize child molestation.

You also brought up Tokyo Babylon, which I hadn't thought of, but which is also a multi-layered shounen ai manga. But for the ages of the uke character, the surrounding story is functionally equivalent to the one in Loveless, except that its fictional roots are a bit sturdier (i.e. it's based in legitimate mythology). I don't think anyone would say that Tokyo Babylon was a shoujo mystery. Even though, yes, it was written for girls, it contains elements of non-consensual and inappropriate sexual love (I believe Subaru was a very small child when Seishirou made the bet with him, wasn't he?), and Subaru does eventually work through the mystery of his past with Seishirou. Ritsuka's age can't eliminate the proper classification of Loveless. It's a shounen ai manga. People who like somewhat sleazy, slightly odd shounen ai manga will like it. That's just a fact.

Also, it's all intent! If a mangaka is too into fan service, then he or she is not a very good mangaka. I have to remind you that Soubi and Ritsuka are paired between as well as on the covers of Loveless, and it seems to be only a few Westerns fangirls who are having a problem with the classification of the manga's genre. As I said earlier, TokyoPop figured it out, and they are famous for their stupidity. Also, fanservice is common in lots of other forms of fiction, particularly genre novels, in which, for instance, Anne Rice will stick a Lestat plotline into a book about fakey religious mythology just to please and attract her rabid fans. That makes Anne Rice a less-than-stellar novelist and Memnoch the Devil a less-than-stellar novel. I believe this is how most genre franchises get started.

Anyway. I think your shock over Ritsuka's youth is the appropriate reaction to Loveless' weirdly arranged plot, and one I assume most fans share. That doesn't change the series into a platonic love fest. In life, you're probably on your own. In fiction -- good fiction, at least -- there's a reason for everything.

*grumbles*If TokyoPop regards it as shonen ai, they should use Blu and a better production style. *grumbles*

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy the fucked-upness, it's what really brought me into the series. And if it is Kouga's intent to portray a truly intimate, deranged style of love, then that will be the case. Nonetheless there is still something morbidly innocent about the relationship, based on Ritsuka's age and Soubi's mentality. Neither is completely aware of what's going on. This does not bring it back to the platonic state, no, but it raises questions about the potentency of the sexual contact between them. The sexuality is not cut and dry. It has a purpose too.

I had a final explanation about how Gravitation ties into this whole issue with viewing it as "a gay love" story. More coherent than my few lines above. But I've stayed up entirely too late with this and I'm going to pay for it at work in the morning. After that I may make another more intelligible try at this.