I struggle with irreverent tone, but basically collect codependent relationships, so I'll make a note of this for when it's out of early access! As such I'm only skimming your spoilery thoughts/liveblog, but I appreciate you posting about this.
Unfortunately I'm really not kidding about collecting these kind of dynamics. I don't mean to turn this into a list of recs except that I'm absolutely going to, because I actively pursue weird dynamics in my media consumption & don't know how to shut up about it. I don't know if you're a big reader, but there's a particularly delightful trend of "family members isolated by Suffering Reasons develop codependent and/or incestuous relationships" in books, ranging in tone:
Flowers in the Attic and the rest of the Dollanganger series by V.C. Andrews is the most genre/pulpy/very silly, as well as the most infamous.
Some of my favorites are The Holy Terrors (Les Enfants Terribles), Jean Cocteau (very French literature: literary, dreamlike, absurdist; isolated children grow too close) and The Dreamers aka The Holy Innocents, Gilbert Adair which has a 2003 film adaptation, also The Dreamers (much sexier and sleeker, traveling student stays with/falls in love with isolated, insular, incesty beautiful siblings); The Cement Garden, Ian McEwan, is in the same vein but even more Literature read: depressing and dry, all about isolated children suffering isolation together & the beauty/disaster therein.
Twins: Dead Ringers, Bari Wood, is out of print but got a 1988 Cronenberg adaptation, Dead Ringers; also there's a 2023 miniseries, also called Dead Ringers, that I haven't yet seen: identical twins are gynecologists sharing lovers and drug problems; the book is more realistic and explicitly incesty, the film is more Cronenberg.
Of course We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson, needs no introduction but if it does it's whimsical and dark and claustrophobic, codependent agoraphobia; The Deranged Cousins, or, Whatever, Edward Gorey is 35 gothic pages of ridiculous insular self-destructive cousin shenanigans (here's your irreverent!).
Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma is YA tearjerker drama about a consensual but, you know, troubled incestuous sibling relationship.
The manga Happy Sugar Life, Kagisora Tomiyaki, might also interest you! Teenage girl befriends cute abandoned little girl; will overturn the world to protect her. It has sibling-adjacent vibes & the combo of very cute/moe and very dark seems like it might hit irreverent-ish vibes without being exactly humorous.
And those are unfortunately just the highlights. I tag my weird relationship consumption as Unusually Intimate Relationship and use it to cover any interpersonal dynamic which is unusual/expresses itself unusual ways, where 'unusual' is a know-it-when-I-see-it quality that varies from violence-as-intimacy to taboo relationships to codependency in its many forms. And if you're ever like, wow, I wish someone had a masterlist of this kind of stuff or was willing to go on at length about specific examples/categories, that would be me.
no subject
Unfortunately I'm really not kidding about collecting these kind of dynamics. I don't mean to turn this into a list of recs except that I'm absolutely going to, because I actively pursue weird dynamics in my media consumption & don't know how to shut up about it. I don't know if you're a big reader, but there's a particularly delightful trend of "family members isolated by Suffering Reasons develop codependent and/or incestuous relationships" in books, ranging in tone:
Flowers in the Attic and the rest of the Dollanganger series by V.C. Andrews is the most genre/pulpy/very silly, as well as the most infamous.
Some of my favorites are The Holy Terrors (Les Enfants Terribles), Jean Cocteau (very French literature: literary, dreamlike, absurdist; isolated children grow too close) and The Dreamers aka The Holy Innocents, Gilbert Adair which has a 2003 film adaptation, also The Dreamers (much sexier and sleeker, traveling student stays with/falls in love with isolated, insular, incesty beautiful siblings); The Cement Garden, Ian McEwan, is in the same vein but even more Literature read: depressing and dry, all about isolated children suffering isolation together & the beauty/disaster therein.
Twins: Dead Ringers, Bari Wood, is out of print but got a 1988 Cronenberg adaptation, Dead Ringers; also there's a 2023 miniseries, also called Dead Ringers, that I haven't yet seen: identical twins are gynecologists sharing lovers and drug problems; the book is more realistic and explicitly incesty, the film is more Cronenberg.
Of course We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson, needs no introduction but if it does it's whimsical and dark and claustrophobic, codependent agoraphobia; The Deranged Cousins, or, Whatever, Edward Gorey is 35 gothic pages of ridiculous insular self-destructive cousin shenanigans (here's your irreverent!).
Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma is YA tearjerker drama about a consensual but, you know, troubled incestuous sibling relationship.
The manga Happy Sugar Life, Kagisora Tomiyaki, might also interest you! Teenage girl befriends cute abandoned little girl; will overturn the world to protect her. It has sibling-adjacent vibes & the combo of very cute/moe and very dark seems like it might hit irreverent-ish vibes without being exactly humorous.
And those are unfortunately just the highlights. I tag my weird relationship consumption as Unusually Intimate Relationship and use it to cover any interpersonal dynamic which is unusual/expresses itself unusual ways, where 'unusual' is a know-it-when-I-see-it quality that varies from violence-as-intimacy to taboo relationships to codependency in its many forms. And if you're ever like, wow, I wish someone had a masterlist of this kind of stuff or was willing to go on at length about specific examples/categories, that would be me.