You don't get to decide where to draw the lines, noone does.

So all that buildup is just over? They've made up inbetween chapters or something? Feels a little weak to me

The series is structured as a series of short 4 page scenes that together tell a larger story. Every chapter is set some span of time after the last, with whatever happened inbetween left up to the reader's imagination. No chapter thus far has directly picked up where the last left off.

This is the format the author has chosen to tell the story. I can get the complaints that people would like to see more of what happens in the interim, but at the very least the format shouldn't be a surprise at this stage.

Chapter 27: Putting the bag over her head was theatrically funny… the kind of humor you can see on screen/television. It reminds me of that actor who put a paper bag over his head labeled “I’m not famous” at some film awards. (Obviously, since I don’t remember his name, he’s not famous. I might be bluffing. Bluffing, buffing, buff—gasp! It’s Shia LaBeouf!). How funny. The paper bag is what helped me remember his name. How ironic.

You don't get to decide where to draw the lines, noone does.

They're not wrong. Words have usages. Dictionaries catalogue usages so people can communicate with each other, but no one person decides what a word means, and usages evolve and change gradually over time.

Gender and sexuality are increasingly accepted as spectrums, which means the terminology surrounding those topics are going to drift as that changes. It doesn't mean they're meaningless, it means the meaning to somebody else might be different from what it has been to you.

It just occurred to me, but 5 years from now when someone comes to Dynasty to read what people were saying about this manga at the time, they will be completely flabbergasted at how such an innocuous manga could create such intense reactions.

…he/him lesbians…

offs!

Not THIS shit, again!

“Lesbian” is an adjective, not a club. If you say people that aren’t homosexual women (cis or trans!) can be lesbians, then the word becomes pointless.

I’m done with commenting on all things forever online. Sick of shit like this.

i think you may have misunderstood what i was referring to - there exist butch lesbians who take being butch so far they use male pronouns even though they identify as women and explicitly not as trans. some of them are even pretty terfy.

yeah, it's weird to me too, but they're out there. my whole point was that whenever i see this thread it's blowing up into arguments about definitions around these issues, even though they're extremely subjective. it just doesn't seem worth it.

no, my comment might not have been very helpful in that regard

last edited at Nov 14, 2022 12:02AM

You don't get to decide where to draw the lines, noone does.

https://i.ibb.co/09mLgMs/english-language.jpg

Dictionaries catalogue usages so people can communicate with each other, but no one person decides what a word means

Isn't that the point tho? She can't decide a different meaning for a word and then demand that everyone follow her—instead of following the dictionary.

The statement "noone decides where to draw the lines" is quite funny. Everyone's language is a private language? Words have no definitions? Really?

You don't get to decide where to draw the lines, noone does.

https://i.ibb.co/09mLgMs/english-language.jpg

Dictionaries catalogue usages so people can communicate with each other, but no one person decides what a word means

Isn't that the point tho? She can't decide a different meaning for a word and then demand that everyone follow her—instead of following the dictionary.

The statement "noone decides where to draw the lines" is quite funny. Everyone's language is a private language? Words have no definitions? Really?

.......
yes..
that is a correct statement.
All language is based on interpretation.
to pretend otherwise is really.
really. dumb.

consider the word I used there, dumb: Oxford's dictionary defines it as "temporarily unable or unwilling to speak" or "stupid."

one was far more prevalent, I'd say even before the year 500 when english was born and lady was spelled leifdeigh.
getting mad over it is stupid (I see the irony)

TLDR: yes, everyone's language IS a private language, and words do have definitions that are often ignored.
Hope this helps!

oh also there are totally women who use he/him. so yes. he/him lesbians. I don't make the rules because making rules on these things would be really stupid when the only drawback is people in comment sections getting mad about "the sanctity of language."

. Forgot school Mitsuki was "like that" (awkward and shy as heck)
. Forgot the other side of Mitsuki was "like that" (innocently super hot and flirty.)

I feel you, girl, I feel you.

last edited at Nov 14, 2022 8:20AM

It just occurred to me, but 5 years from now when someone comes to Dynasty to read what people were saying about this manga at the time, they will be completely flabbergasted at how such an innocuous manga could create such intense reactions.

It's not even been a year, but I'm already flabbergasted by how the thread has almost 3k messeges.

last edited at Nov 14, 2022 1:17AM

You don't get to decide where to draw the lines, noone does.

Is it me or does it seem like this story is starting to fall apart at the seems?

Is it me or does it seem like this story is starting to fall apart at the seems?

just you, seems pretty coherent to me

This girl keeps dialing up the smooth even though she don't know she's doing it. I'd be dead on the ground if I were Osawa.

Well, clearly, Aya has been listening to the Studio Killers. They just became friends, and she already wants to ruin it.

The biggest crime is knowing that, as much as this series deserves an anime adaptation, it will probably never get one. Would definitely love to see the story fleshed out more and fill in some of the time jumps. Like when she figured out Koga's true identity. It feels like she went from not having a clue to suddenly knowing.

We actually got that scene? Aya saw the playlist she sent 'Onii-san' on Koga's phone and panicked, and in the leadup to that she kept getting small flashes of Koga reminding her of 'Onii-san'.

I'm still following this, but I think it's impressive (not in a good way) that this story manages to feel really dragged out while being served only 4 pages at a time... and sometimes said 4 pages don't tell what is happening too clearly.

I want to like it, with cool art and all that, but it keeps falling short for me.

I feel ya. I am impressed as well

With each chapter, much of the time I'm left thinking "That's it??". Often covers very little and then jumps to the next day with the next chapter.

Gotta say I'm not feeling what you folks are. I don't really have expectations that a lot is going to happen in a 4 page chapter. If you took 8 of these chapters and strung them into a single 32-page monthly-manga style chapter, it would be a chapter where a bunch happened.

The author's painting with whitespace, which is less common in written works, but I like it for this story and I'm not sure if a more explicit, an slower paced, telling would work as well.

Edit: Apparently the forum doesn't like emojis? That's a bit unfortunate.

last edited at Nov 14, 2022 3:18AM

Koga is unaware of the effect she has on women

wait, did a linguistics argument sorta start here? and it seems like one between prescriptivist and descriptivist factions. If I have interpreted the situation correctly, then I know who I'm siding with.

every time a big argument/discussion happens where it's way too big brain for me and I have absolutely no idea what's happening, I feel like Jim in this moment

Oh my gods will you two just kiss already! [Incomprehensible gay noises]

Being a 4-page manga, pacing is indeed an issue in this story, but I think that sometimes it is justified to just skip and give incomplete answers to the readers since the answers themselves are trivial. We know at the beginning of the chapter that they did not have a full conversation, because if they did, we’d get to see it. The author is simply skipping the boring parts and leaving it for flashbacks and assumptions which, given the format, is ok imo.

You can't seriously say that these answers are trivial.

The story is ignoring all the tension and conflict that had been building up for several chapters. Whatever conversation happened after Mitsuki asked the question would not only contain the answer to the question but also continuations to many other things: the fact that Mitsuki is a girl, the fact she pretended to be a guy, her reasons for doing so, the distance they kept from each other for a bit, why they care, etc. All of this was built up and none of it is resolved, addressed or developed simply by having us assume Aya said "yes".

Besides, even if we could make assumptions that answer all of these questions, why not show it? You came up with your own headcanon about what happened so even if we assume you're 100% right about the events, wouldn't you still want to see them? We've just been denied a major culmination of this story.

Imagine if in The Lion King, the story went from Simba looking uphill to see the wildebeest stampeding toward him to Simba having already left and we only learn through dialogue that Mufasa died and Scar took over.
This is what just happened in this story.

A major issue with your point is that she never pretended to be a guy. She just never revealed her true identity. Yeah she could've but on the flip side she never had to do so. Now that she wants to be friends as herself and not her fake self Aya is happy, since that's what she was originally mad at. You're looking way too deep into the story.

Being a 4-page manga, pacing is indeed an issue in this story, but I think that sometimes it is justified to just skip and give incomplete answers to the readers since the answers themselves are trivial. We know at the beginning of the chapter that they did not have a full conversation, because if they did, we’d get to see it. The author is simply skipping the boring parts and leaving it for flashbacks and assumptions which, given the format, is ok imo.

You can't seriously say that these answers are trivial.

The story is ignoring all the tension and conflict that had been building up for several chapters. Whatever conversation happened after Mitsuki asked the question would not only contain the answer to the question but also continuations to many other things: the fact that Mitsuki is a girl, the fact she pretended to be a guy, her reasons for doing so, the distance they kept from each other for a bit, why they care, etc. All of this was built up and none of it is resolved, addressed or developed simply by having us assume Aya said "yes".

Besides, even if we could make assumptions that answer all of these questions, why not show it? You came up with your own headcanon about what happened so even if we assume you're 100% right about the events, wouldn't you still want to see them? We've just been denied a major culmination of this story.

Imagine if in The Lion King, the story went from Simba looking uphill to see the wildebeest stampeding toward him to Simba having already left and we only learn through dialogue that Mufasa died and Scar took over.
This is what just happened in this story.

A major issue with your point is that she never pretended to be a guy. She just never revealed her true identity. Yeah she could've but on the flip side she never had to do so. Now that she wants to be friends as herself and not her fake self Aya is happy, since that's what she was originally mad at. You're looking way too deep into the story.

Woah, woah woah. I don't agree with the previous comments about the story (this is a completely legitimate way to tell a story), you've gone off on your own unrelated tangent here, and also missed the main conflict.
Mitsuki didn't have to reveal that the store clerk was actually a girl, no. But she did hella need to stop stalking the girl at school under the pretext that they were different people. If you don't see what's wrong with that, then it's actually you who is the one preoccupied with the girl/guy revelations.

I want to give this comic a 1000 likes and more. Take all my love, author!!

You don't get to decide where to draw the lines, noone does.

https://iili.io/yrRzdP.jpg

Y'all semantically-challenged folks remind me of a post I saw on one of the queer forums I use that completely flabbergasted me: this girl came in asking if she can still call herself a lesbian even tho she finds one femboy really hot. That's the sort of astoundingly silly question one asks when they use merriam-webster as gospel. No reasonable person goes through a taxonomic process to determine the right words for sexuality and gender. It's about the vibe, not what an editor at oxford university press thought up, sorry

Aya is quite good at reading social cues, and she understood from the beginning that Mitsuki is socially awkward. She has been mad at her while understanding Mitsuki's dilemma at the same time. She clearly understood that Mitsuki didn't intentionally hide her identity from her, at least at first. She was mad because now that they were interacting at both school and at the shop, she wasn't coming clean. That's why she has been calling her "coward" in her mind. She knew there were no ill intent, just some lack of courage...

I don't think she is holding a grunge about all that. She was shocked at first, then angry, but now that Mitsuki have found the courage to come clean, Aya has already forgives her. Even in this chapter she recognized Mitsuki's social awkwardness...