poor little prince boy

Ouji Reizoku 1 ~Senko Ibun~ by Yashiro Yoneka and illustrated by Rikuyu Chikako is the first of two books set in a Chinese fantasy world. I've only read the first volume so far, but it was highly amusing. Story is about the oldest son of a kingdom who is a prince but has no real status since his mother was not high class and had no family backing. He's smart but can't fight. His younger brother, the heir, is the son of the queen and has charisma and is an excellent warrior. Their uncle betrays their father while they are being invaded and their father is killed in the battlefield. The sons escape into the mountains and are attacked by creatures. Oldest son cracks open the protective amulet his mother had given him, which releases a powerful fox...demon? Don't know what the right English term would be, but the fox kills all the other creatures. Before oldest son can thank the fox, the fox rapes him because he's hungry and the other creatures were not very tasty or filling. After some arguing oldest son agrees to be the fox's slave if the fox will protect his brother. The brothers and the fox end up back with their people (who was being led by younger brother's family) and they fight to take back the kingdom.

Naturally this is filled with older brother's suffering. It's very exquisite at times, because the author doesn't disappoint. Older brother has a need to be useful and protect his brother thanks to past trauma, he and fox have a very difficult relationship because they can't get past the initial defensive stands they took after the rape, the older brother is not treated well by the other important people around his brother because he has no real status, the real bad guy in the story has a personal thing against him, etc. The climax of the first volume made me laugh, which probably says something not very good about me. ^^; Basically, older brother gets massively and badly gang raped by a bunch of soldiers in a dungeon after being manipulated by invisible snakes to seem like he's a wanton slut. Of course fox rescues him, but only after he'd been fucked into unconsciousness (though the soldiers continued on even with him unconscious). I laughed at this scene because the whole situation makes the older brother reevaluate his relationship with the fox (which had degenerated into nasty sex and not much more), naturally. Nothing like a good ole gang rape to realize your original rapist wasn't such a bad guy. After he's rescued he thanks the fox for everything before losing consciousness again. This freaks the fox out since the older brother had never been so honestly grateful to him, no matter what he did to protect his brother or whatever. The main story of the book ends here, but I suppose this will start the change of their relationship. The rest of the volume is mostly about the fox and his past.

the problem with reading too much BL

I came across a delightful review for a book about an uke who is fucked by his twin younger stepbrothers and learns to love it:

木原・水原作品が好きで、よく読むせいか、
本作品を読んでも「黒い」とか「きつい」とは思いませんでした。
むしろ「この内容をあっさりと書ききってるなぁ」という印象を受けました。
義弟である双子に犯され調教されて、被虐の喜びに目覚めていく…ところなんかは、
「え？　抵抗はこれで終わり？　ていうかもうM自覚ですか？」と突っ込みたくなります。
（抵抗されてこそ萌えるので）
タイトルに「禁忌」とついていますが「タブー」という感じはあまりしません。
それは私が木原・水原先生で慣れているからなのか。単に愚鈍なのか…。
義弟っていうのが既に「OK!」と思っている段階で駄目なのかも知れません…

Basically she says that she'd found the whole thing unsatisfying because she expected more. More resistance (which is a moe point for her), more sinfulness, more whatever. She wonders if her dissatisfaction comes from the fact that she reads so many books by Konohara-sensei and Mizuhara-sensei. I totally understand her point. I think what it takes to shock/titillate me is growing worse and worse the more I read this stuff (especially Mizuhara-sensei's stuff, she likes abuse A LOT). :P Maybe I should stick with fluffy happy books for a while...Or at least books with consensual relationships...Though non-con is so common in BL it can appear when you least expect it, especially since rape is so often used as shorthand for great passion/love/obsession.

i'm a sucker for stories with obscure German words in their titles...

I decided to look around Japanese Naruto fanfic sites today and stumbled upon a fascinating WIP at 推定有罪 (Suitei yuuzai, http://atjack.nobody.jp/) called エアケントニスの怪物 (Erkenntnis's monster). During some big battle between Naruto and Sasuke, the 9-tailed demon fox is fully freed. Sasuke uses the Sharingan to shove it back into Naruto. The two are very injured, Naruto is in a coma for 6-months. Sasuke is a prisoner at Konoha, still heaing. He is in a wheelchair, wears manacles, and bandages around his eyes because he's not supposed to use his eyes much. Naruto's physical injuries quickly heal when he wakes up, but he's lost his memories. Not only that, but his personality is freakily different. He's cold, calm, indifferent. The only thing he responds to is Sasuke when Sasuke is brought in to activate his Sharingan to check Naruto out. He is filled with fear by Sasuke's Shanringan, saying that only Sasuke can completely dominate him. Sasuke finds Naruto's changed personality odd and tells Kakashi, acting leader of Konoha, that Naruto needs to be watched. So Kakashi decides that Sasuke should "watch" Naruto as they don't have enough people to spare. To kill two birds with one stone, Naruto takes care of Sasuke during the day so that they can watch each other. He's turned into a model ninja. He reads through textbooks in preparation for taking an exam to resume ninja duties quickly and actually picks everything up. He can do all the basic ninja skills he apparently wasn't the greatest at picking up before. But he's not the Naruto of old. He's cold, and thinks of everyone other than Sasuke as background scenery. He is repelled by his old self and wants to be dominated by Sasuke. He declares that he's willing to escape Konoha with Sasuke. Sasuke, for his part, is having none of it. He orders Naruto to absolutely obey Kakashi.

Erg, that summary doesn't convey the utter creepiness of Naruto's POV. Sasuke POV is very similar to other "brought back to Konoha after big battle" fics, so I'm familiar with it. He's weary and kinda blah about life in general. But this Naruto is just...wrong. His obsession is all-consuming but very, very cold. Also, there's no sexual tension (yet). The author says in her blog that she plans on four more chapters, hopefully two in this year. I hope she finishes it. I wonder if she'll bring back Naruto's real personality...At least momentarily. I just don't know what this story is supposed to go and I'm very intrigued.