Gwen/Ben

[fierysue]

Haha.

Part of the reason why I'm less excited about Bwen compared to Gwevin is because I'm really close to my cousins, both guys and girls. And while I don't have a love-hate relationship with them, pretty much everything else in Bwen's relationship sort of mirrors mine. It probably is because of culture - family, especially my Iranian side, are all so close (I do hug and even kiss my cousins, girls and guys, although ignore this statement if it freaks you out). In US culture, I suppose this is frowned upon, but in literature (such as War and Peace), cousins do kiss each other (this is on the lips), such as Sonya and Natasha (War and Peace). (I don't plan on marrying either of my older guy cousins though.)

But the thing is Bwen could be interpreted either in a cousin-love or a cousin-LOVE. I just based it more on my own experience, although Bwen is intriguing (again, I do not plan on marrying my cousins).

[perhapsormaybe]

I spend most of my time reading manga, so I'm used to the idea of cousin love. (also have a weird fascination with twincest...ignore me).

*laughs* There's nothing wrong with liking your cousins that way in a crush anyways. My cousin is *built*. Like, seriously one of the most muscular guys I've ever met. ...but he's kind of a jerk and he kept swinging me over his shoulder just to prove he could do it, so...yeah.

[fierysue]

Card Captor Sakura anime) had so much cousin love, I swear. At the beginning there was Touya/Tomoyo (which I personally thought to be freaking adorable), but it was supposed to be Sakura/Tomoyo (which I totally did not see as LOVE until I went to wikipedia about it and found out that they were supposed to have that kind of relationship), and then there was Syaoran/Meiling, which was the absolutely funniest pairing ever. I couldn't help but laugh almost every time that Meiling glomped Syaoran. Really added to the whole funny thing...

Actually, the reason why I was so insistent I wouldn't marry my cousin is because there are several instances in my family (Iranian side) of cousin marriage. In fact, my uncle married a second/third cousin, and a relative married his cousin (and I'm sure there are more instances I don't know of). There's a trend, but I don't see myself following it. My sister (14) could have possibly liked my Iranian elder guy cousin (25) as a crush before (she mustn't know I said that, lol) ... Because when we went to Iran for the first time, the night before we left all our cousins came to see us and my sister (7) refused to let go of him and was crying the whole time. She seriously refused to let go, and they were supposed to leave at 12 and left an hour later. Go figure.

So really, cousin love happens a lot, literature, manga, why not cartoons?

[perhapsormaybe]

Oh, I *love* Cardcaptor Sakura!

Well, there is that stigma in the US. Cousin love is definitely taboo, usually associated with your stereotypical 'hillbilly'. A lot of other countries are very accepting of it.