Ah, I recall seeing this one when I first found Dynasty, and coming back to it again, I can confidently say that it's my single favourite image on this site. The lines, the fabric, the colors, the expressions- the longer I look at it, the more beautiful it becomes. The ship itself is excellent as well.

I see it as an investment. This experience will help not only for a single convention, but for the rest of her professional (if she continues to be a mangaka) and personal life.

Five years later
Artist: Honey, I've just read Homura Subaru and Taiyaki, and I think we could do something similar. Could you lactate in my general direction while looking at me like I'm your mischievous teenage daughter?
Escort Girl (sobbing): Yes, darling.

I wouldn't call it an asspull. The swords' powers were introduced long before this, "Hollow" just should have known better than to let this one go.

Besides, she very clearly either pulled the sword out of her chest or the air around her, and not the anal cavity. Definitely not an asspull. No hero would ever stab someone with a shit-coated sword (apart from Sir Kay, but he was always a bit of a weirdo).

^ It's probably this.

Y'know, I feel like hiring an escort girl would cost far more than what an artist in the niche yuri doujin genre could make at a convention, but I'm probably gonna assume that they got married later on and the escort girl waived charges. That, or the artist went on to become the next Wakame Konbu and just made tons of dough.

Poor Marisa. Must be difficult to deal with the fact that her best-case scenario is still losing 6 matches out of 10 to Reimu.

I still haven't figured out if all the intriguing dissection the game has brought upon itself is mostly down to its own merits, or something more happenstance.

I'd say it's probably because of the whole morality angle- there's nothing people love more than a discussion about justice and evil and whether or not it's right to shove screwdrivers up orifices in specific situations. I was recently going through various academic research articles on videogames, and found that the vast majority of them engage with the same issue- how do videogames address morality and traditionally 'negative' actions in fictionalized worlds and reward-based systems? It's possibly the oldest and juiciest of debates about the medium, even if the discourse wears thin sometimes. Heck, I don't normally know the first thing about popular AAA games, because they often seem too synthetic or overproduced to grab my attention, but the TLOU2 debate was still enough to pull me in. So while I think the story itself is standard dark, post-apocalyptic character drama fare, the way that it's told serves as a launchpad for tons of interesting ideas. Much like FE3H or FF7R, I consider it a fascinating, if shaky, crucible of ideas and potential. I do hope that going forward, the game isn't just associated with the LGBT controversies, but actually inspires other mainstream developers to try similarly ambitious storytelling and engage with videogames as 'art' instead of purely consumer products.

And yes, Thor is awesome and deserves all the popularity in the world.

However, I've spent way too much time reading and discussing the game, so I sincerely hope (and believe) that I've done a respectful job representing their viewpoints.

This is a pretty good, neutral summary of the positions overall. Another criticism that's not purely related to the LGBT position, but might connect to it is that the game is at odds with itself- namely, that it attempts to fuse videogame mechanics with conventional storytelling (as most games do), but never really gives the player much in the way of agency or control. Simply put, the player is made to be a 'spectator' to a (very) dark drama about revenge and hatred and sundry other cheery themes, but also frequently 'guilted' for violent actions that they had no choice but to take, since the game is fundamentally a third-person shooter that bars progression unless you blow the stuffing out of assorted heads (some of which are named Seth or Doug, as many surrounding heads will mournfully clamour). It simultaneously advertises the edgy, hyper-realistic murder mechanics and treats them as something repulsive, and many people have pointed out that this attempt to simultaneously make you complicit to terrible things while not giving you any actual agency comes off as obnoxious. Ergo, rather than using the medium to elevate the story via the presentation of choices and consequences, the game is essentially a dark zombie TV series with videogame segments thrown into the middle, and switches jarringly from one to the other.

This, combined with the fact that many characters act in relation to the greater plot rather than what most would consider common sense or intelligent decision-making, makes the entire experience feel like a 30 hour tragedy (an integral part of classical tragedy is the inability to avert dark outcomes and the terror that this affords, but obviously, these Aristotelian ideas don't lend themselves well to an entirely different medium than theatre, and many have claimed that the overwrought, sprawling story feels exhausting rather than epic). Therefore, many of the characters feel far too melodramatic or deranged for people to relate to, and this obviously applies to some of the LGBT characters as well. In short, the game slings so much blood and gore at you that it inhibits your ability to care, and at some point, the game stops being a masterpiece or a disaster and turns into an exercise in tromping through entrails (See Darkness Induced Audience Apathy on TV Tropes). The jury's out on how much of this was intentional and how much of it unintended (Game Director Neil Druckmann claimed that they didn't use the word 'fun' during development, which handily reflects what most people felt as well). All in all, it seems like the answer to the question- "What if Gen Urobuchi made a videogame?", with all the polarization that implies. I will say that it's quite ambitious for a mainstream, AAA game though- Naughty Dog could've made something far more generic and still grossed buckletloads of money, but they chose to go for a more artsy, daring approach. Even if it falls flat at times, you gotta give 'em credit for jumping.

I'd recommend two excellent video essays that offer a more comprehensive mechanical critique:
1- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa9oEroGDQc
2- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28EI2su_LIQ

The Auricle predicts that they'll realize each other's feelings in around 300 chapters.

Tamamo-no-Mai: Stabs SHY
SHY: Heh, all according to keikaku.
Tamamo-no-Mai: Impossible! How could you have predicted this?
SHY: Dunno, lady. It ain't my keikaku.

Such an exquisite set of stories. For all the works about Gensokyo being this hub of endless fun and shenanigans, I've always visualized it as a quiet and tranquil place, a product of an age where people lived in tandem with nature, and it was perfectly acceptable to spend an evening staring wordlessly at blooming flowers. Without information highways or bustling crowds or routinized goals, the world seems so much larger, and though Gensokyo is rather tiny as fictional worlds go, one thing I've always loved about Touhou is how vast and diverse it seems. This collection really does justice to that pensive, thoughtful sea of lives, and even the romance is wonderfully subtle and nuanced, built upon shared thoughts and eloquent words rather than mere impulses. It's unique, thought-provoking, and fulfilling in every way.

Interesting little story. The logistics are all kinds of patchy and plot relies more on the ideas suggested by the twist than any kind of emotional foundation, but I did feel decently surprised at the end.

I am looking forward to Euphie realizing that she has just graduated from being a pawn to being a player. It's like that old joke, "Take out credit, buy a tank. - And what if they send debt collectors? - Who cares? You have a tank." Anise has just basically handed a tank to Euphie and said, you are free to do whatever you want. Euphie is caught up in her own mind's prison at the moment, but the "squirming inside" she feels is basically her dissatisfaction with her old life bubbling its way to the surface, and will hopefully transform into desire for change.

Anise might actually end up building a tank at some point in the series, seeing as she must've learned about them in her previous life. Still, despite the 'Revolution' in the title, I don't think this series is gonna gun for a massive, dramatic war to overthrow the nobility and reform the kingdom like in I Favor the Villainess. I could see Anise's inventions kicking up a stir and uprooting the status quo by mass-producing and increasing access to magical power, removing noble monopolies on magical knowledge and equipment, which in turn would make them strive to seize Anise's innovations instead of letting the benefits filter down to the public.

The series is pretty strongly setting up Euphie as the next ruler, so she might just engineer a coup with a Anise's help and become an 'ideal' ruler who wins the trust of the people and gradually democratizes the administration. Alternatively, I could also see Euphie deposing the corrupt old nobility and then handing power over to prominent figures among the public instead of taking the reins herself. This would represent how far she's come from her roots, having found something far more valuable and fulfilling with Anise than she ever would on the throne, and not wanting to give it up to continue in a taxing, punishing hereditary position when she could just chill with her wife in the countryside or help the masses at street-level and on a person-to-person basis.

One interesting direction the series could take is by setting Anise and Euphie up as enemies based on their differing ideas of 'ideal' rule- Anise grows inspired to shake things up and liberate the country, while Euphie grows hesitant and is unwilling to betray her noble roots. I'm only suggesting this because I love angsty stories where lovers are torn apart by differing ideals, though it wouldn't be too strange for a girl with 21st century ideas of democracy to clash with a thoroughbred noble. Chances are that they'll work out any disputes over the course of a couple of chapters, and simply defeat someone important in the royal palace instead of plunging the nation into war (female-centred isekai stories tend to put a lot of stock in the value of manoeuvring and individual confrontation over mass-level conflict). In that sense, while the endgame will almost certainly be a 'Revolution', it'll likely be a much more intimate, personal one that alters the ways in which our leads perceive themselves, each other and the world as opposed to a drawn-out military conflict (much like Utena, which is always a good example to follow).

Building a supercharged magical vibe for your girlfriend is couple goals.

I also like how uncertain Euphie is about this whole arrangement. Sure, she gets not to live in fetters or be banished to a backwater, but her life's still been turned upside down, and the manic pixie dream princess in this scenario only serves to befuddle her more. Every day for nearly two decades, she's lived according to a routine, and so it makes sense that she'd see being abducted to a castle by a cheery lesbian as a shady-ass proposition. She's not jumping for joy or savouring the yuri, and the fact that she still thinks about the prince despite feeling zero attraction to him is quite the realistic reaction for a girl who's been groomed into a world of political marriages and royal duty. It sets up tons of space for her to grow, and neatly counteracts Anise's penchant for going adventuring at breakneck speeds.

Mayuki from Sumire's perspective: Baby
Mayuki from Akira and Rin's perspective: Mommy
Does this make Sumire the doting grandma?

Whoa. Saw some dinner on the feed, and boy, was it spicy. From the title, I was half-expecting a story about lesbians in the Air Force or SpecOps, but this somehow seems like it'll be even darker. Love it.

There's a lot to unpack here, folks. I loved the scattered, shady, montage-style sex scenes- they serve to drive in how clinical and furtive the relationship is, despite being the best thing in Chinami's life (not that there's much competition). The affair doesn't seem sensationalized or voyeuristic or exploitative towards the guy (not that we'd care)- it's a bitterly realistic portrait of two people asphyxiated by life, desperately trying to get a breath of fresh air, even if they could only ever meet in stuffy, dark rooms with the shades drawn. There's an atmosphere of heteronormativity and repression here that's brilliantly realistic, not in a grimdark way, but in one that's hauntingly natural. This ain't a celebrity scandal- it's a standard indiscretion in an apathetic society among incredibly mediocre people, and they all know it.

The husband's a real piece of work, but despite the wandering eye and the body-shaming, his speech about how Big Corporate embalms you alive struck a chord. The whole thing seems like a standard relationship structure- young woman marries a fairly ordinary guy, they don't magically fall in love, but tolerate each other and keep up pretences, and then they hit their 30s and the economy dropkicks everyone in the balls. I love how the guy's buddy told him that he might be getting his steak neto-rare instead of well-done, because it's not just lampshading- these genuinely seem like people who beat off to shitty porn on late evenings because they don't want the blood flowing from their dicks into their brains and reminding them of how pointless their lives are.

There's also some interesting points made about society and childbirth- I particularly loved how the first few pages were completely silent and still brilliantly communicated Chinami's mixed fear and apprehension towards the ring. She seems to want to be a traditional wife, but the neurons ain't firing that way, even if the husband's emptying his revolver all the time. Regardless of whether Mediocre McCoy's infertile or successfully conceives a kid, things are gonna get ugly. Best case scenario, we get Netsuzou Trap. Worst case scenario, we get Gunjo (god, I hope we get a worst-case scenario). Overall, the whole thing reminds me of My Broken Mariko, though at least no one's dead yet (apart from their marriage, bwahahaha).

This could be extremely entertaining or extremely melodramatic, but whether it's a trainwreck or a rollercoaster, I'mma buy a ticket. This is shaping up to be a fun little ride across a shady and little-explored district of YuriTown, and I've got a feeling we're gonna be seeing some real interesting scenery.

^^ Plot twist: The year is 2999 and this is a classy VR lesbian brothel populated by androids that lets you knock boots in a recreation of whichever time period fits your fancy.

I've got zero context for the characters here, but boy, are they rocking the aesthetic.

Meiling going from cool, reliable older sister to sloppy (but still cute) older sister as Sakuya grows up seems oddly realistic.

"It's not an indulgence in worldly desires if I'm doing a tiger-yokai-god hybrid." - Byakuren, shortly before indulging in worldly desires.

last edited at Dec 4, 2020 11:05PM

Luck o'the Irish at full force here, I see.

Be hilarious if somewhere down the line, Sorawo and Toriko started using Otherside Picnic as a codeword for quickies.

Using your girlfriend as a flail is not the wisest strategy, but mahou shoujo have a history of using weird weapons.

I bet they were just walking through a regular-ass neighbourhood before Kanae grabbed Haruka's arm and spontaneously turned everything pink from sheer gayness.

Tsugu: Baby, your hand's so cold.
Ebrietas: That me anterior foraging tentacle.