Kanae transformed from incel to alpha chad before our very eyes

Don't you mean femcel?

Also, I thought there was gonna be something between Nao and Onibi after the chapter where they met, given they were even draw together in the Halloween thingy, but I guess that was a misdirect.

last edited at Jul 10, 2022 11:18PM

juanelric posted:

Kanae transformed from incel to alpha chad before our very eyes

Don't you mean femcel?

Also, I thought there was gonna be something between Nao and Onibi after the chapter where they met, given they were even draw together in the Halloween thingy, but I guess that was a misdirect.

They're in the volume cover too (Nao and Onibi), for vol 12 and all the other important pairs have their own cover so I wouldn't write it off so soon.

But yeah Honoka and Eli and Haruka and Kanade, man that's the gooooooooooooooooood stuff!!! like, they're just in their own world, and seeing Honoka and Haruka responding in turn it's so cute!!!

@Serenata yeah, it's really nice finally seeing those two couples together. Especially since, initially, neither Kanae nor Honoka were implied to have a possible partner.

Kanae x Haruka are my favorite pairing ... glad to see them again! If only Ayano x Miyoshi were so honest ...

Honoka and Eli have exchanged love confessions??? And the excuse of sleeptalking doesn't work because Eli admitted she was awake??? So now they have officially put a name on their mutual feelings and they are by their own recognition a couple in love???

WOW!!! ♡♡♡

I wouldn't be so sure about this. You might be right, but ...

My read on Honoka has always been that she is obviously straight. She not only writes but daydreams yaoi manga. Go back to the XMas episode where Honoka is invited over Eli's place and gets to meet Ed & Ian. She gets to witness Eli at her most bootylicious in that outfit (that outfit!!) and she reacts with complete disinterest. Then when Ian says he was going to wear something like that for Ed, she starts drooling while fantasizing about it.

Now, this is just a comic where magical things can happen. But it's not a stretch to imagine that even in a yuri manga, the author might be slightly concerned about the silliness of imagining that everyone within this extended network of friends just happens to be gay. That he might throw in some platonic female affection from time to time - which can still be "ecchi" even if only suggestive.

In real life, women are different than men. They don't shy away from intimate affection in the way men do - they can say "I love you" without having to suffix it with something like ", man ..." in order to make it clear that it's platonic. Granted, there is some scientific evidence that female sexuality is a bit more fluid (the old "college lesbian" trope) than for males, so a sexual thing here could still be somewhat plausible.

Nonetheless, I'm far more convinced of the relationship between Kanae and Haruka, despite them never having uttered the phrase "I love you", than I am for Honoka and Eli. Actions speak louder than words.

EDIT: OK I'm forgetting Haruka's note to Kanae ... still, Kanae never explicitly said it back, and yet the feeling is obviously mutual.

last edited at Jul 11, 2022 3:26PM

She not only writes but daydreams yaoi manga.

You answer your own doubts tho. She like Yaoi and is a bit disinterested of anything outside of it. Doesn't mean she is straight.

She not only writes but daydreams yaoi manga.

You answer your own doubts tho. She like Yaoi and is a bit disinterested of anything outside of it. Doesn't mean she is straight.

I've acknowledged that, but I don't see how this answers anything. She was more than "a bit" disinterested. I remember because I was disappointed:

In real life, that's virtually 100% a straight girl. I'm a straight guy, and if I'm in Honoka's position, I'm trying really hard not to stare (and filing that image away for ... later). Honoka's reacting the way I would have if I saw Ian like this (the thought of which had Honoka drooling). Sexual attraction is a primal thing; you don't react like Honoka does here if you're secretly bisexual.

But of course, this is a manga. The author can make whatever he wants happen. Yet, notice the complete lack of blushing, flustering, sweating, heart-thumping, or any of the other indicators Torajirou typically uses to indicate repressed sexual arousal. This is what convinced me he wanted this to be more of a "suggestively ecchi close friends" pairing than a "seriously potentially romantic pairing".

So we'll see. But I wouldn't be shocked to see Honoka claim in a later episode that she didn't mean it that way (which of course, will draw skepticism that she's simply in denial, in order to keep the "ship" afloat ...).

I think is just shows how much their relationship has changed, after all, before she wouldn't even let Eli get close or touch her and only accepted to come over to see "live action BL" her head was filled 99% with BL and her general vibe seemed miserable when it wasn't related to yaoi.

Nowadays not only they share the same personal space but now Honoka doesn't need the Live action BL excuse to come over, in fact it can be just the two of them, a great example

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/virgins_empire_ch216#1
https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/virgins_empire_ch224#1

If you think she's not interested and straight after seeing those chapters, well... you might be suffering from denial.

It started with Honoka coming over because Eli lived with two gay guys. (I remember her saying yes after Eli told her about this in an early chapter.) I think Eli liked Honoka -love at first sight "she's so cool"- and then Honoka fell in love along the way.

last edited at Jul 11, 2022 11:56PM

Nowadays not only they share the same personal space but now Honoka doesn't need the Live action BL excuse to come over, in fact it can be just the two of them, a great example

Of course she doesn't need an excuse - they're extremely close friends now! Eli has pulled Honoka out of her shell and finally given her someone to relate to instead of brooding alone in her room all day. That's a serious thing! They absolutely love each other in a completely deep and intimate way - no question. And Eli is almost certainly bisexual. But I just don't see it with Honoka.

I think we're letting our perviness get the best of us when we project romantic, sexual feelings onto something quite possibly deeper and more substantial.

If you think she's not interested and straight after seeing those chapters, well... you might be suffering from denial.

Oh, not a chance ... after all, denial is for things you don't want to happen, and I very much would love to see it. But the best way to believe something is true is to look for reasons to doubt it, and I see plenty in this case.

In fact, I think you're missing some of the subtleties in Honoka's reactions. Yes, there's the blushing - indicating embarrassment, but that happens when Eli is all over Honoka or getting in her face. But there's no heart-racing like with Haruka, no individual moments of longing like when Ayano looks at Miyoshi ... Notice even at the end of the second chapter that you linked, her reaction is "You were supposed to laugh!!" when Eli responds with enthuiastic arousal. She was trying to play along - indicating that her sweating and stammering prior to that was genuine discomfort.

I would be interested to know if any of the people disagreeing with me are gay/bisexual women. Not to discredit anyone ad hominem, but I'm curious whether an L/B would think this idea of lesbian sexual desire going from zero-to-girlfriend like this is realistic. Or maybe some straight women on whether or not Honoka's behavior would be consistent with how they might react to having a close friend who they suspect wouldn't mind an experimental dalliance with them (I'm guessing there aren't many straight women here). I have a feeling we're a mostly a bunch of straight dudes who think we comprehend women better than we do, but maybe I'm wrong.

If this was a manga where most of the main cast weren't lesbians/bi, you'd have reason to argue otherwise. In this case, for this manga, that's just a super weird opinion.

I just can't, not only saying that Honoka is 100 straight no matter what happens but you also come saying that NOW Eli is bisexual, because she clearly likes Honoka but the proof of being bisexual? Is that she likes BL

You see, if we keep humoring your hot take, it means that Onibi, Mask and that small girl with the ribbon are also Straight, why? because they like BL! so much Straight representation, the author sure is kind and open minded.

Anyway... As they say, you do you, buddy.

i know plenty of lesbians that enjoy BL/mlm media. you don't need to be sexually invested in it to enjoy it. besides, this is still high school; the "high schoolers that obsess over BL" to "unstoppably sapphic adults" pipeline is eternal

eromancer posted:

My read on Honoka has always been that she is obviously straight.

Well, then you turned out to be wrong.

That's probably the most unbelievable statement I have ever heard about the genre. How many yuri manga have you read? ... giving 2 fucks about "straight representation" ... what? More realistic????? ... "no shit" ... And now that's just hot bs. ... you're using those harmful stereotypes ... you're now dedicated contrarian just to spite them ... huge pain in the ass, because there will be always that 1 person who just won't shut up how they're not confirmed couple, so to think we'd actually have a discussion questioning a freaking mutual confession on fucking yuri focused forum, I'm more than shocked

Nevri, I'm going to start by saying that I feel bad about not reading any further than the last sentence of what I selectively quoted above. You seemed to pour a lot of passion into that post, whether or not you intended for me or others to read it, and I don't doubt that there is some valuable insight there. I'd like to come back and read it at some point.

And I imagine you take exception to my selective quote - as if I'm trying to make you look unreasonable or hysterical. I'm not. I am merely trying to highlight what jumps out at me as the difference in tone and emotional investment in this discussion - and why I'm not inclined to engage it much further unless we straighten something out here.

Since I've clearly hit a nerve with you, let me be clear: I'm not the slightest bit angry or upset about any of this. I haven't the vaguest hint of "spite" - I even explained in my last post about how I wanted this to happen and am mostly just being skeptical. But it's just a manga. I'm merely sharing my opinion about this one aspect, and I thought we might have an interesting discussion. I had no idea people would actually get so angry and hostile about something like this.

To your remark about how many yuri manga I've read: lots. And they don't usually indulge in the fantasy of an entire world full of gay women, but sometimes they do. And that's fine. But since this is one of my favorite manga, I credit it with a bit more nuance and felt like it wouldn't at all be a bad thing if it were willing to explore an unusually intimate yet platonic relationship. I'm not sure if you are opposed to that sort of thing or never thought of it that way, but your hostility to my thinking so has definitely taken me aback. I see this as being open minded, which I would hope would be acceptable among what I would assume is liberal company here.

I don't know you, ...

Well let me give you some relevant information. I'm somebody who normally spends way too much time on political forums trying to convince varying degrees of delusional right-wing ... people ... to open their eyes to the danger the United States is in from militant MAGA culture, political authoritarians, and religious extremists. As I'm sure you can imagine, things can get a bit chippy, despite my best efforts.

So when I come on a forum like this, well I guess I'm naive enough to imagine I won't have to deal with anything like that, because we're talking about comic books. This is life's toy department. And though the discussion intersects with some real life issues, they're mostly about people's individual perspectives on general differences between genders and sexual preferences. We all have them, and they all differ to some extent - and I'd hope we could talk about them without wanting to punch each other.

And on that note I would respond that I never said anything about whether differences in men and women were the result of nature or nurture (that's unclear, but our best scientific understanding plus the wisdom of dealing with complexity says, like most things, it's a bit of both). Nor did I say they were categorical, which is why I made it clear that it was just my opinion and I could be wrong. As to my reliance on "harmful stereotypes", everyone promulgates and buys into stereotypes (this manga is full of them), and all stereotypes can be portrayed as "harmful". It seems to me that you've clearly made some assumptions about me based on past experiences with others - and perhaps the fact that I'm a straight male.

... if the rest of your posts weren't so infuriating. And to answer your question, you're wrong. At least half of dynasty users aren't straight or men, so next time you want to write bs like that, do remember definitely a lesbian, a gay and a trans person will read it. And just to be clear, I'm a lesbian, so you can consider all I said a unquestionable truth and you're not allowed to argue with me (just in case it's not clear, I'm being facetious).

Again, I'm sorry and disappointed to hear I've infuriated you. I'm glad you pointed out that you were being facetious because I'm not sure what I would have thought otherwise. I didn't (and still don't) think I said anything that ought to be infuriating - aside from the general discomfort that we've no doubt all experienced when someone has a different take on a beloved story that we have an emotional investment in. I understand that, but I would hope that's something we eventually learn to see as a subjective thing not worthy of this kind of rancor. I think if you re-read my posts without the preconception that I'm some troll trying to piss on people's favorite ship, ... well, I hope you'd agree I'm being respectful in my opinions.

I'm happy to hear the perspective of a lesbian, because I explicitly asked for it. And by the way, the reason I had a feeling that most of us were straight men is that yuri can often cater to straight male tastes, something that I've heard from women before. I'd be interested to know how you can say what proportion of people here are male or female.

Anyway, I'm sure you don't want to hear me lecturing you, but I also don't need to be lectured on how to speak to gay or bisexual people. I've done plenty. (I only know one transgendered person IRL, but I imagine that number will grow.) Generally speaking, I don't moderate my speech much based on who's listening. I find it disingenuous.

So I would hope that if you wanted to continue the discussion we could do so with a bit more civility. If not, then this is obviously more important to you than it is to me.

I just can't, not only saying that Honoka is 100 straight no matter what happens but you also come saying that NOW Eli is bisexual, because she clearly likes Honoka but the proof of being bisexual? Is that she likes BL

Look, as I responded to Nevri above, I don't want this to turn into a flame war. But I have to say of all of the objections here, I find yours the most puzzling.

Yes, my impression of Eli being bisexual is based on the fact that she draws BL - well not only on that, but I'll expound in a moment. Is it absolute proof? No. Is it possible someone might engage in drawing men having sex based purely on the art? Sure.

Now go back to the episode I referenced above and re-read page seven. Where Eli laughs at the idea that there's anything artistically sophisticated about yaoi. I don't see how anyone reading that page comes to any other conclusion than that both Eli and Honoka are just in it for the pervy enjoyment. That is, if their absurd yaoi plots or Honoka's drooling daydreams weren't enough.

So yes, in general, it's possible, but highly unlikely, that neither Eli nor Honoka are sexually attracted to males.

You see, if we keep humoring your hot take, it means that Onibi, Mask and that small girl with the ribbon are also Straight, why? because they like BL! so much Straight representation, the author sure is kind and open minded.

C'mon, seriously? Yes. I didn't think that was in doubt.

You can call my opinion about Honoka not being totally straight a "hot take", I suppose. But the idea that Onibi, Mask, and Midori (and Honoka and Eli) are at least sexually attracted to males isn't a "hot take". It's common sense. And if you don't think so, I'm sorry - but you need to get a handle on the difference between open minded and being naive. Between something being possible and something being probable. As I pointed out above, the author isn't trying to hide it.

And if you don't think that gay women drawing BL would be strange and overwhelmingly the exception to the rule, go ahead and tell me that you think there are more than a tiny minority of people on this site - much less the authors themselves - who aren't sexually attracted to women.

And at the risk of violating my own rules against this - I'm going to read a little into the obvious sarcasm of this last statement of yours. I'm getting that you think I'm some sort of a heterosexual/Gamergate/mens-rights crusader who's just offended by the notion that sexual attraction by women toward men isn't given an appropriate nod in a yuri manga - what with my fear of losing all of my male privileges in the patriarchy and such. And that consequently I'm jealously guarding this notion ... in a comic book. If I'm over-reading you, then my apologies, but the following applies all the same.

I'm straight. I like women. I don't come here to see naked men or hetero relationships (not that I'm opposed to the latter, but I'll go elsewhere if I want that).

But yes, I do see it as open minded, mature, and respectable that an author clearly doesn't feel like throwing a few straight/bisexual women (or gay men) into a yuri manga is a threat that simply can't be abided in yuri - an attitude that is frankly childish and an insult to the self assuredness of gay people. And while I'm not offended that some people don't see it that way, I am offended by the implication that anyone who does is some kind of anti-progressive troglodyte.

Anyway... As they say, you do you, buddy.

Likewise.

But the idea that Onibi, Mask, and Midori (and Honoka and Eli) are at least sexually attracted to males isn't a "hot take". It's common sense

no man that's a hot take, you have no proof other than "they draw males so they like males", that's rushing to conclusion without putting any thought in it

brooo I don't think honoka has told eli she loves her back before this right? we love to see it

also this dude really sitting here saying shes 100% straight based on the fact that his straight-self said so okay bro lmfao

The notion that there could be too many queer people to be “realistic” is so funny to me. In my experience, us queers subconsciously gravitate towards each other since the “doesn’t quite fit into heteronormativity” vibes seem to naturally attract similar people. In fact, 3 of my friends in high school also turned out to be trans on top of being gay.

We find each other lol

Oh, also, regarding the “why wasn’t Honoka drooling over Eli’s outfit” line of discussion, I think it’s worth bringing up demisexuality and similar ace spectrum attraction. There are people out there who only experience physical attraction after forming an emotional bond with them. I don’t think that Honoka’s being written with that term specifically in mind, but I don’t think her behavior is somehow inconsistent with being into women either.

My read on Honoka has always been that she is obviously straight.

What's obvious to one person can seem like projection based on limited personal experience to others.

Ahhhh. My heart just stopped! Two of my faved couples have chapters again!!!

Ok, I couldn't resist reading the rest of your post after I lowered the blast shields. :-)

Except, at that point they literally just became friends and Honoka still has all sorts of weird misunderstanding about Eli and her intentions. So at this point they're only friends and she is obsessed with yaoi so it makes sense she'd be more into her gay hosts than her. Also you're forgetting Honoka had very bad experiences with other people and is very closed off. She's classic loner mangaka otaku with difficulty to express herself. Despite being worried about Eli's reaction and trying to decline her invitation at first, after seeing her disappointment, she feels bad about it and forces herself to come anyway.

Ok well perhaps you and I have different experiences of sexual attraction. At the risk of validating another male/female trope (which I can see you're averse to) I don't have to be friends with someone to find them sexually attractive. Sure, it helps - in fact the best kind of sexual attraction is one augmented with knowledge of a person. But let's not kid ourselves about the general nature of sexual attraction - a lot of it is physical. And involuntary.

That's probably the most unbelievable statement I have ever heard about the genre. How many yuri manga have you read? Vast majority of them are wish fulfillment stories about all girls high schools where entire main cast, or hell even supporting cast, is gay. I have never saw any author actually giving 2 fucks about "straight representation" or how "unrealistic everyone being gay is". The fact everyone is gay and you don't need to worry character will get rejected, because other girl is straight is like the main point of those stories. Are you seriously arguing that in story that we literally have like 15 couples and is classic example of "all girls all gay high school" author suddenly started caring about "realism" and decided to make 1 straight? To make it what? More realistic?????

Perhaps more sophisticated? More interesting? I'm not trying to be snobbish, but would you be opposed to that? There are innumerable ships in this story - doesn't the perceived inevitability of them all get a bit tiresome?

Men shy away from intimate affection and feel the need to preface everything with "no homo", not because we're fundamentally different, but because of social pressure and our culture.

Probably, mostly. Can't help but notice you seem confident in your (general) understanding of men. :-) That's fine. I do it too.

There's no biological difference between men and women in terms of sexuality and behavior. Everything is result of society and individuals.

Ok, this is a bit off-topic, but that's fine.

Look, I'm progressive, but we can't wishcast our priciples into pronouncements about empirical reality. And we don't need to. The principles of individuality tell me, for example, that I don't have to care about the fact that, say, girls on average kick the living shit out of boys in measures of verbal acumen. It doesn't say anything about me, because I'm an individual, there is variation in any population, I know who I am, and I expect to be judged on that basis.

So we don't have to run away from what we learn about general differences in groups - in particular, differences between men and women. Gender is the one area where many of the things we traditionally think of as stereotypes are actually based in truth. Again, there is variation in any population, so these aren't categorical differences.

Regardless, we live in a civilized society where our survival no longer depends on us having to all conform to the roles evolution designed us for. But that doesn't mean the traits we established in order to make us suited to those roles have disappeared. Evolution doesn't just select us for physical characteristics. There isn't an animal anywhere close to humans where males and females don't exhibit dramatically different behaviors. And science has, in fact, shown plenty of general differences in how we learn, think, and behave.

And if there's one area where we should be least surprised that we differ, it's in sexuality and sexual desire - a primal trait that is the engine of reproduction and evolution. One very interesting scientific study a few years ago (conducted by women) studied our physiological responses to sexual stimuli, and revealed differences that, at the very least, are deeply rooted and entirely unconscious. It's not anything threatening to social status, but there were unquestionable differences between men and women. Men were far more consistent than women, so it's definitely harder to make generalizations about what turns women on. But the differences were real.

The only reason women experiment more, especially in teenage years, is because they're allowed to. Unlike men, they're not scrutinize and ridiculed for every single touch or hug. They're not conditioned to control themselves and be careful what they say and do. They're free to be more open about their feelings and express them. You can be lesbian without losing your femininity. Being gay means your masculinity will be questioned 24/7.

But that's also why after graduating majority of women still end up marrying guys and having kids. Because will society allows women to "experiment" in high school, being lesbian after that is weird and not what society expects from them. Their time when being lesbian is "allowed" ends. That's why women "appear to be" more fluid. They simply have more time and options to express their sexuality, before they're also forced to conform to social expectation and pressure and pick w/e they accept it or not. Many married "straight" women were never straight to begin with.

All very true things which no doubt explain a lot.

The short is that I can't believe you're using those harmful stereotypes and cultural limitations as your evidence that they're not really attracted to each other.

If you're talking about my remark about female fluidity, that was in support of Honoka being possibly into Eli. As for the idea that girls are more comfortable expressing affection, I don't see you denying that it's true - you're simply arguing over the reason for it. Which, for our purposes, is irrelevant. Again, my initial post said nothing about nature vs nurture - because it doesn't matter.

But those were only reasons not to assume that shows of affection and "I love you" were necessarily indicative of sexual attraction. The main reason I'm not convinced Honoka is sexually attracted to Eli is that I don't see evidence of the sexual part of it. I suppose if you want to draw a distinction between "sexual" and "romantic", well, perhaps, but that might be something along the lines of the very intimate platonic friendship I'm proposing.

And I never denied that Eli is all into Honoka.

Nonetheless, I'm far more convinced of the relationship between Kanae and Haruka, despite them never having uttered the phrase "I love you", than I am for Honoka and Eli. Actions speak louder than words.

I get that you got disappointed you didn't get what you expected and so it forever tainted your experience with that couple. I totally understand you, I ruined many mangas for myself, because they didn't go the way I expected them to go or characters didn't behave the way I expected them too. That being said, I'm confused why your ultimate proof that they're totally not in love with each other is 1 scene when they literally just became friends. Sure, she didn't show much reaction there, w/e that was mistake on authors part of w/e there was other reason for it, but after that we got plenty of very cute moments between them, clearly showing their attraction to one another, yet you never bring any of them

Yes!! There have been many cute moments indeed. I'm not denying that. Would it be terrible if that didn't involve sex?

Eli is clearly interested in Honoka since the get go, flirt with her all the time and tells her she loves her, which I don't need to link, because like, c'mon, but to say Honoka doesn't show any interest either is just either being purposefully disingenuous or you got so angry about that 1 lack of reaction from seeing Eli in skimpy cloths, you're now dedicated contrarian just to spite them...

Again, I'm not angry. Disappointed, but I'm willing to accept it for what it is - and if that's platonic, I'm ok with it. If not, that's great too!

Honoka gives me huge tsundere vibes. She totes love Eli at this point, she was just afraid to admit it because of her past experience. Them loving each other is so blatantly obvious, I can't believe you found their mutual confession unbelievable. Like, there's plenty enough of series where nothing is openly confirmed, but there's clear subtext, but people insist "they're straight", "there's nothing homosexual about it" as long there's even 1 piece of evidence to doubt it, so making any definite statements about those couples is huge pain in the ass, because there will be always that 1 person who just won't shut up how they're not confirmed couple, so to think we'd actually have a discussion questioning a freaking mutual confession on fucking yuri focused forum, I'm more than shocked. I don't know you, so maybe it's just this 1 instant, but based on your 3 posts I read here, I wouldn't be surprised if you were one of those people.

Honoka has definitely been pulled out of her shell by Eli. Which is very heartwarming. I never said I found the confession "unbelievable", as if I thought it was fake. It's just that "I love you" has a lot of different meanings.

I understand your point, but you're forgetting sexual attraction is more complicated than that. It manifest differently in different people. Some people have very strong reactions while other have much more control over their body and/or it simply isn't as obvious. Also you fail to take into account that Honoka could be asexual or she only reacts to people she actually bonded with and have stronger connection or, you know, because she was ostracized and made fun of, her attraction to other people simply atrophied and so it's harder for her to feel aroused in general. It can happen especially when you stop interacting with 3d world and mostly focus on 2d. Case in point, you're simply projecting your idea of how a straight girl should act and react in this situation and draw assumptions from there.

Well if she's asexual, then she's definitely not sexually attracted to her - although I imagine that by "asexual" you perhaps mean something more like demi-sexual in that she can only fall in love or experience sexual/romantic attraction with someone after getting to know them. And the problem with that is that Honoka clearly demonstrates arousal at the idea of sex between males.

But of course, this is a manga. The author can make whatever he wants happen. Yet, notice the complete lack of blushing, flustering, sweating, heart-thumping, or any of the other indicators Torajirou typically uses to indicate repressed sexual arousal. This is what convinced me he wanted this to be more of a "suggestively ecchi close friends" pairing than a "seriously potentially romantic pairing".

And again, there's plenty of explanations one could give why it is this way here. But hell, maybe author actually did do it on purpose, because they had different plans for Honoka at this point. Maybe you are even right and at that point, they intended her to be just a straight fanservice girl or whatever. Whatever it is that they planned at that point is clearly no longer relevant, because they decided to change it and take that character into another direction, but for some reason you're not taking all the new evidence into consideration, making me suspicious you have some kind of different motive for it.

I have no motive, other than to talk about a romantic relation in a manga. I only highlighted that inital post because it best illustrates my point. But I have followed their relationship - I've read every episode of this manga. I always pay particular attention to how each person reacts, and I've been looking for Honoka to demonstrate something that crosses that line between non-sexual love and the kind we're all thinking about. Yet at every point, Honoka holds back and demonstrates what to me seems to fall short of sexual attraction - cute and heartwarming as it is.

I will say the one time that I thought she did show a possible sign was when she made a reference to Eli's hips. But that was only once, somewhat ambiguous, and not enough to overcome what came before.

But if you're convinced that the "I love you" was a full-on romantic confession, great! I hope you're right. I wish I could share your joy, but I can't make myself believe something just because I want it to be true, or because everyone is accusing me of being willfully blind. If I was that easily influenced I'd believe in God.

So we'll see. But I wouldn't be shocked to see Honoka claim in a later episode that she didn't mean it that way (which of course, will draw skepticism that she's simply in denial, in order to keep the "ship" afloat ...).

I'm confused how confirming ship would destroy ship. Like it's not like there are other characters you can ship them with, so it's not like making them a couple in this case would be detriment to series in any way, unless you're here just for "will they/won't they" dynamic, which is just not sustainable after certain point. And it's pretty clear they're the official paring from the start, so not like author is worried to lose some readers that ship them differently.

I'm saying if Honoka claims in a later episode that she didn't mean "I love you" in that way, it could potentially destroy the ship, at least as most people want it to be.

And honestly if they really could do the whole "mutually confessing love to each other" and then author could still take it back, then we really live in the worst timeline and homosexual relationships will never be allowed ever, because after that, nothing will ever matter and you can simply bs your way out from any homosexual couple to ever exist in fiction.

Whoa, OK, I think you're going way overboard here. I'm suggesting that what you see as a "confession" may not actually be a confession in the sense you're imagining, and you're taking this as some sort of attack on having homosexual characters in manga? Have you never read a story where you were misled into thinking one thing, only to have another reality revealed, or teased into believing something is more significant than it is? Hell, Yumimi does it to poor Nononon all the time!

I think we're letting our perviness get the best of us when we project romantic, sexual feelings onto something quite possibly deeper and more substantial.

Ok that statement quite genuinely confuses me. You're the one that started with projecting your own perviness onto how Honoka should react to sexy Eli trying to arouse her, so where that "we" came from. Nobody but you project anything.

Waaaiiit - saying that if sexual attraction exists, sexy Eli should elicit a reaction from Honoka ... is somehow projecting my perviness? That's just an empirical observation based on how sexual attraction works. I'm saying that assuming sexual attraction must arise because two girls are put together in an ecchi situation is generally a pervy expectation that males have - and a trope that many people, particularly (in my experience) straight women, find gratuitous and tiresome.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not denying my perviness - I'm just aware of it leading me to be biased about things.

Also are you implying that romantic feelings aren't "deeper and substantial"???? Are you actually arguing friendship is deeper than love? Just in case, I think they're both very deep, but also very different feelings, so they're around equal, but most people would say love is the deeper of two. Are you like seriously the contrarian here?

I think a very intimate platonic friendship can possibly be deeper and more substantial. It is certainly more durable. That's the problem with romantic feelings. They fade. I know because I've been in several long term relationships. Certainly my own flaws have something to do with it. But familiarity always creeps in, and the wonderful newness of falling in love is a hard thing to face never feeling again.

I would be interested to know if any of the people disagreeing with me are gay/bisexual women.

And I fail to see how that's relevant to anything. Love and attraction is the same no matter who it is. Only difference is individual. It's not like lesbians experience love different than straight men or something.

As I've noted above, there are real generalizable differences between men and women, with regard to sex and sexuality. Any couples therapist or sex psychologist will tell you this. They aren't absolute rules, but they are accurate often enough to be reliable. The idea that there aren't comes from how people distort progressive principles into unnecessary expectations about empirical facts.

To put it another way, everyone is an individual, but it's fair to assume that a woman likely understands women (in general) better than I do.

Not to discredit anyone ad hominem, but I'm curious whether an L/B would think this idea of lesbian sexual desire going from zero-to-girlfriend like this is realistic.

Well, love at first sight is a thing and very common in all the movies and stories (too common, if you ask me), so it's quite possible. And yes, it happens all the time in yuri stories as well. Again, how many did you actually read? Also it again feels like you're skipping a lot of evidence and only focus on that first major encounter, because Honoka had plenty of time to grow to like Eli, so it's nowhere near close to from zero to girlfriend, but somehow you keep ignoring that.

Like I said, I've read a lot - and I've come to wonder if this one might be taking a stab at something more complex. Maybe not. But as I've addressed previously, I'm not ignoring anything. I just don't have time to be analyzing every single episode (EDIT: By that I mean here on this thread, for the benefit of this argument; as I've said, I've read them all myself.) Honoka is definitely warming to Eli, no question. I just think it might be a different kind of "warming".

Or maybe some straight women on whether or not Honoka's behavior would be consistent with how they might react to having a close friend who they suspect wouldn't mind an experimental dalliance with them (I'm guessing there aren't many straight women here).

Honestly, your insistence everyone is exactly the same and there's no meaningful difference between people, their experience and personality is starting to be insulting. Also, just to remind you, it's fiction so even if author tries to keep characters consistence etc. it doesn't mean you can like perfectly diagnose someone behavior and figure out what they really felt. It's not like author is sitting down with biology textbooks and psychological studies, making sure every character's physiological and psychological behavior is exactly in line with what you'd expect from them.

I never said that everyone is exactly the same. I've merely stated that there are generalizable differences, and it doesn't matter if you or I or anyone finds them insulting.

And I believe I clearly acknowledged that it's fiction and the author can do what he wants.

last edited at Jul 13, 2022 4:37AM

The notion that there could be too many queer people to be “realistic” is so funny to me. In my experience, us queers subconsciously gravitate towards each other since the “doesn’t quite fit into heteronormativity” vibes seem to naturally attract similar people. In fact, 3 of my friends in high school also turned out to be trans on top of being gay.

We find each other lol

Yes, that is one argument in favor of the realism of it. Like attracts like, regardless of whether we're talking about being gay. However, nowadays this happens far more readily since we are in the era of people being open about homosexuality. Talk to older gay people and you'lI likely find that it was a much lonelier experience in the past.

Nowadays, being "queer" is actually seen as kind of cool in American culture, especially among younger people. Despite what manga tells you, that is not generally true in Japan.

But the biggest reason I say it's unrealistic is that only a certain percentage of the population is gay (which is a more restrictive group than "doesn't quite fit into heteronormativity"). That percentage is growing, but it's almost entirely due to more people identifying as bisexual. So anyone who does care about realism (not saying anyone should) shouldn't be triggered by the idea of some characters being bisexual (I'm not directing this at you - someone else here seems to have a problem with it).

My read on Honoka has always been that she is obviously straight.

What's obvious to one person can seem like projection based on limited personal experience to others.

And what's more, that can work in both directions!

Oh, also, regarding the “why wasn’t Honoka drooling over Eli’s outfit” line of discussion, I think it’s worth bringing up demisexuality and similar ace spectrum attraction. There are people out there who only experience physical attraction after forming an emotional bond with them. I don’t think that Honoka’s being written with that term specifically in mind, but I don’t think her behavior is somehow inconsistent with being into women either.

Yeah, I considered that (although I'm not familiar with "ace spectrum attraction"), but she shows clear signs of sexual attraction to males. I didn't think "demi-sexuality" was gender specific like that - although it's probably a rare enough thing that it's not well studied.

Anyway, it's just a manga. It doesn't have to be realistic. I was only suggesting it as a possibility for why this ship might not lead to the same inevitable conclusion as everyone else's. Simply wanting to do something different would suffice.