Forum › Posts by mccann

American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

We're not shown enough to know for sure, but what we do see is only the emperor doing her empress, not the other way around. And considering the very title of the series, I'm pretty sure the emperor is still managing to keep her wife in the dark, as ridiculous as it may seem. :D

She continues to address the emperor as "he" even in her thoughts. She definitely remains unaware. Presumably, she assumes there are concealed issues "down there" that she can compensate for with her hands. She's "right," in a really roundabout way, which makes the emperor's reactions funny.

I don't know if we would trust gendered pronouns as authoritative in translations: they come up in English way more often than Japanese, so I wouldn't be surprised if the same applies in Chinese. I remember with Mihoyo games there's been multiple translation errors over the years where they inserted gendered pronouns where none were specified before, and ended up guessing incorrectly.

My very low-level understanding of Mandarin Chinese is that "she", "he", and "it" are all pronounces the same - "ta" with the same high pitch, but they are written with different characters as Chinese is not phonetic like English is, so when speaking the gender is ambiguous - but not when written.

e.g. (English/Simplified Chinese/pinyin pronunciation)

he eats rice
他吃米饭
tā chī mǐfàn

she eats rice
她吃米饭
tā chī mǐfàn

it eats rice
它吃米饭
tā chī mǐfàn

I can see that making translation difficult for gender-bending and cross-dressing stories like this one.

American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

Now that I think about it more... this is a good "life" story. It's not a romance, but it's about life.

Life, especially in young adulthood, is a lot of trying things, it not working out as you'd hoped, and figuring out how to keep going despite that. This is a story of that. It's not the end of everything if you try a thing and it doesn't work out. You have your feelings, you regroup, and try something else.

That's normal. That shouldn't be seen as a failure or horrible. That their relationship survived, that they landed back no worse for the wear, are successes, albeit small ones.

They may have more false starts, but I have a feeling they'll eventually both get jobs and be happy, hopefully with a real marriage certificate someday soon. This was just an interesting detour in their lives that the author wanted to draw.

It may have been better if it had ended with a page of them discussing the summer when they're middle-aged and successful, and how wild and misguided it was, but how they were happy they were able to do it.

American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

yknow i kept thinking about this work and it's like. a reverse christmas hallmark movie. it's sort of refreshing. and although the ending was quite bittersweet. i dunno. i like it.

Reverse Christmas Hallmark is a great way to describe it.

American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

I liked the ending. "No matter where you go, you will be there."

At some point, you can't unrun your own feelings and need to learn how to process them and face them head on instead of letting them dictate your life. I feel that the lesson the characters learned was something like that.

Find value in what's working your life, and you can perservere through what's not, until you figure out how to make it work. Needing everything to be working out all the time is the best way to be miserable and desperate.

mccann
American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

I've been really enjoying this story. The novels are good too, but seeing it in drawings is somehow creepier?

American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

Ema blaming Ayame for the break up because she "did too much" was insane tho
And then Ayame agrees and goes "yeah blabla my ego"

What kind of backwards thinking is this, boyfriend was a pos that left all the housework on her shoulders(like many men do) and its somehow her fault it didn't work out??? What was the mangaka thinking with this bs

Just accept what was actually on the page.

Why is it backwards thinking if that guy didn't want to be obsessively pampered and left her? Not to mention she clearly did that to other people too, and they left as well.

It doesn't seem logical, but there are people out there who will find any way to blame their partner (or parents, or roommates, or whoever is closest) for things they're insecure about. I'm assuming that it's the emasculation of being financially provided for regarding rent, not that he's not able to do the housecleaning, that's the main issue for him -- here's the thing he could've just given Ayame money for his half of rent, or set up a direct deposit situation with the landlord to ensure he was paying half or something - but he'd rather blame Ayame for being too much like a mother. Failure is more tolerable for some if they blame it on others.

mccann
American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

I really have to give it to the artist, they're really able to capture the tension in the situations well. I keep on being pleased with the quality of the adaptation (I've read the books). :-)

American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

The reality is relationships are hard. Building a life together is hard. I appreciate how the story handled the couple's naïve idea that they could just run away together, live in an idyllic countryside, and all their problems magically go away.

As a wise man once said, "Wherever you go, you're still there."

I dunno about this. Relationships aren't THAT hard when the world isn't throwing crap at you. And where you are does matter--places are not all just the same, and going somewhere else can genuinely solve problems. So for instance, if your problem is that you're gay and it's illegal for you to get married, and you go somewhere that it's legal, that problem just magically went away.
The kind of fatalism that says it doesn't matter what place you are in is ultimately not different from the fatalism that says nothing can change in the place you are already at.

It really depends on the situation, these two young women had moved to run away from the very harsh pressures of new adulthood and starting their careers. There was no better legal situation for them, no abusive family they were creating distance for themselves from, or particular opportunity they were moving for. What ended up happening is basically those concerns followed them, as they realized they needed a stable income to survive, and part time work wasn't going to be easy/available consistently enough to insure their survival in the place they ran to. So yes, where they went to, their career worries followed them.

American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

The slap wasn't cool. They need to actually sit down and talk about what they both each expect and want out of life and their relationship - not a fun part of life, but being together for life entails awkward conversations like that. I get the frustration of eking out a living in a place of your partner's choosing, only for your partner to change her mind (happened to me a few times, then partner become an ex for that and very, very many other reasons).

American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

That's a power move, inviting all your exes to your wedding and then seating them at the same table

Based on the comment above, it's even worse, inviting all of your side pieces to your wedding and seating them together.

American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

Manga transwomen are always beautiful. No adam apple, no large shoulders or hands, no square jaw. Always pass flawlessly.

some days this annoys me, some days it makes me happy. the brain is a funny thing

If it helps, manga cis-women are also always beautiful: no large noses, perfectly symmetrical faces (and boobs), never have weight in weird places (are more apt to be impossibly thin than to be even slightly overweight), rarely have acne or blemishes, minimal wrinkles if any, etc.

Maybe manga characters are just idealized representations, like, more akin to what the character's inner beautiful soul is like, versus what a realistic human looks like?

American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

Personally don't really understand the need for the "cancer plot point" but hoping she beats it and get to live out her life.

Also, obligatory Fuck Cancer.

Fuck God for being an awful writer then, since this is based on true events lol

When I read the title, I had the thought "This sounds like it'll at least some autobiographical elements in it" -- since most fiction tends to be fairly tidy, and real life is rarely that way. Truth is Stranger than Fiction.

mccann
American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

It's nice to see a 27 year old being realistic about someone 8 years their junior (even if she's a bit immature for her age in other ways). 8 years isn't a big deal for like people in their 30s and older, but between an older teenager and someone in their mid-to-late 20s, it isn't a small thing.

Bah. Like people in their mid-to-late 20s are so mature. Still kids really.

Adulthood is a myth ;-)

mccann
American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

It's nice to see a 27 year old being realistic about someone 8 years their junior (even if she's a bit immature for her age in other ways). 8 years isn't a big deal for like people in their 30s and older, but between an older teenager and someone in their mid-to-late 20s, it isn't a small thing.

That being said, this is a work of fiction and so, it's not worth getting too worked up about.

mccann
American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

This is sweet. I hope she makes a happy life for herself.

American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

Uh, oh—bad behavior in a fictional story. Time to break out the torches and pitchforks.

(And for anyone out there delusional enough to believe that stories are guidebooks to proper behavior: they’re not. Please make a note of it.)

It's not that it's bad behavior, it's that it's bad behavior that falls directly in line with a harmful stereotype of LGBT people being predators. The idea that gay/lesbians folks take advantage of the lower boundaries people have around people of their same gender and will prey on them if they don't keep their guard up is offensive because most people wouldn't do something like that.

That, compounded with how it looks like it won't be caught/called out, leaves me feeling that this work isn't something I'd enjoy. Maybe it's because I grew up in the 90s, but the only lesbian being a molester, who is explicitly taking advantage of female only spaces/closeness rubs me the wrong way hard. Maybe it's different for the teenagers of today, but when I was in high school being seen that way was one of my biggest fears.

That isn't to say there are no lesbians who behave badly or do things like that, but, they're a small minority and deserve to be called out the same way straight molester should.

I hope this clarifies why it is not necessarily simply a matter of taste to those who think it's making a mountain out of a molehill.

last edited at Apr 17, 2022 8:37AM

American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

FiddlePop posted:

Is the baby really a Non-science baby? Looks pretty much like a science baby to me

Yeah to be honest I'm pretty confused too... Unless science baby means Sci Fi/futuristic only

It's not both moms' DNA, it's one of the mom's plus the other mom's brother's, not a sci-fi thing, but a realistic thing.

American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

I think it's not yuri. IRL, I'd assume someone who felt that crossdressing "suited" them who preferred to socialize when others saw them as the opposite gender, was not cishet, but this is manga, so... it's whatever the author is thinking (unless you're pro-death of the author, then there's no definitive answer).

American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

This is pretty. I look forward to seeing how it goes.

American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

I'm not against all cheating in stories, just... it has to be done well. So far this isn't. The Fuuka girl just comes off as kind of weird and uncomfortable with how she doesn't respect boundaries. Nanase comes off as cold, but there's room for her to be understandable, as we don't know her situation, and some parents would be really crappy if they found out their kid was gay (forcing them to move to break them up, forcing them into therapy, or whatever). Also, I'm not digging the art, the characters posture is too stiff, but that's common in comics.

American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

my friend recently had appendicitis, she told me it was extreme pain in the abdominal area, maybe it might be that

When pain gets extreme a lot of people get worse at pinpointing and describing it.

American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

It was my first ABO/Omegaverse thing. I don't think I would've read it but I like the author's other works. I don't think much of that set up, but I appreciate how this wasn't that played straight (that sounds both boring and weird to me, but if that's your thing, you do you). Twists are good. I hope the MC ends up with her beloved president. Keep taking your meds child, you seem way too young to be having kids.

last edited at May 21, 2021 8:57AM

American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

Even disregarding the magic diet... what kind of parents would let you just not go to school :P really weird chapter overall

High school is not mandatory in Japan like it is in of the US (in some states it is not mandatory after age 16). It's very possible her parents aren't happy about it, but they have limited options for how to deal with it.

American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

So the secret to weight loss is being depressed and obsessed with something while neglecting everything else
Good to know.

I really think manga is one of the worst places on earth to get health advice.

American_virgin
joined May 25, 2014

Some compromise must have been reached between dad and daughter over covering the medical bills.

Dad and son, there is no daughter. The son seemed to have a successful Youtube channel. And his surgery was in Thailand, which is cheaper.