#possiblyhomer

Ayo wtf

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There's a word in Vietnamese, "thương", which is a kind of love that could apply to family, friends, lovers and strangers alike, it doesn't have a direct English equivalent and that's where I think the problem lies. Thương is when you see someone in hardsl times and your heart is filled with a desire to help and make them smile. It's similar to pity in that aspect and can be used interchangeably in some scenarios, but they're ultimately different from one another. Thương makes you feel love for the person in need, not sympathy or empathy, and I think that that's what what they mean when they said Nhị loved Trưng.

Out of the 2 sisters, Trưng suffered more than her in Nhị's eyes. She lost her husband and had to bare the weight of kingship, of course Nhị would thương her sister. And look at her profile and her own lines, Nhị wants to help and protect her sister and that is an extension of her "love".

There are many kinds of love, but when they hear or see that word, people tend to immediately think of the romantic or sexual kind.

And one more little detail: the word "cute" in Vietnamese is "dễ thương", "dễ" meaning "easy"

So tldr: no, it's not incestuous, people've just been on the internet for too long

From what I can see, you're right. Based on reading the event, there's not really any incestuous subtext. They're actually written pretty well. It took until Section 7-ish for Nhi to really start appealing to me, and that was usually because she was locked in her stoic 'siscon' mode for a fair part of the event, and Sections 7 and onward were where we learned more about her personally.

And while I'm incredibly happy to learn a new word and see a Vietnamese person's opinion on this, I feel like that wouldn't line up with the idea of 'siscon' as picked up by everyone else either.

See, I wouldn't call the reaction in the NA community a case of being 'on the internet for too long' as it is a result of a world being doubly-twisted in translation. Linguistically, 'Siscon' or 'Sister Complex' (シスターコンプレックス) is literally a term that got loaned from English into Japanese, popularized in Japan, and then got re-absorbed into Western lexicon for anime fans to mean something slightly different than it did in Japanese. Those sort of 'complexes' held an inherent sexual subtext originally, which carried over to the Western interpretation of terms like 'siscon', 'lolicon', 'momcon', and so on. There was an anon on this blog a while ago that spoke to the more sexual/romantic aspects of being a siscon. I didn't end up posting the ask, though they said they were fine with it, mostly because I kind of wanted this conversation to die out so we could move on. But that's why there's a gap between most English-speaking players to the term 'siscon' and people who are more aligned to the Japanese context. Because in that sense, 'siscon' and 'シスコン' are two incredibly similar yet slightly different terms.

Anyways, that subtext got diluted in further usage of the terms in Japan. Hence why VA's like Rie Takahashi can openly talk about being a shotacon. Because she's just... weirdly passionate about 'young boy'-type characters, but that doesn't mean she's attracted to them in a sexual sense. It's weird, creepy, and embarrassing in most social circles, but it's 'technically not illegal'. It's still strange and fetishistic, but usually used in some sort of comedic sense when it comes to media.

In Japan, while the idea of a 'sister complex' isn't inherently incestuous in a colloquialized sense within the language, it isn't exactly idealistic either. Having a 'sister complex' isn't an admirable trait, but a flaw that results in obsessive clinginess, regardless of any sort of incestuous attachment. That's why it's referred to as a 'complex', because it's a pejorative term that essentially means that one's behavior is abnormal instead of the term that you found, that's more idealistic. Being a 'siscon' is a joke, a punchline that's meant to point out one's behavior as strange.

You're essentially naming a term in Vietnamese that's adjacent to the idea of a sister-complex, but holds more emotional worth. Much like how ancient Greek philosophers developed different words for the various aspects of 'love' that got later used in various manners of social psychology and philosophy today, I think based on the context you gave me, 'Thương' would fall closer to that ideal. It's inherently empathetic, based on what you told me and the brief bit of searching I did. It holds a much more positive connotation, which would have much more plausible deniability if the profile itself didn't use the direct term 'siscon'.

However, I don't disagree with your interpretation. Not at all, really. I can perfectly see your interpretation from what they're saying within their dialogue, especially from Nhi's own sense of self-sacrifice in order to help her sister. However, I don't fully think that the writers had your interpretation in mind when they were writing the two, and especially when they were writing the profile. You're giving the writing team the benefit of the doubt and a pretty generous out.

thank you lilly!!

1: Do you have a good relationship with your parents?

uhhhh hehehheheh ..... no<3

34: Who/what was your last dream about?

It was about my classmates and teachers! I don't remember what was happening, but it was very weird.

63: Would you change your name?

so a while back one of my friends, let's call her j, said yes to a date with this guy, a. a month after she agrees she tells us "guys i dont like him i dont know why i said yes, ive been ghosting him and everything help" so we all agree that she needs to break it off fast, which she did.

issue was: he's in our chemistry class, lunch period, and math class back to back. and in math, j sits at the table directly next to mine. a sits at j's table, directly across from her. so you can imagine my second hand embarrassment.