Lol no way. Seju from WDTFS is the best 3rd wheel of any love triangle I have seen by far. You simply cannot beat being such a good 3rd wheel that at least half the readership is cheering for you despite impossible odds, starts believing that the advertised plot twist is that you are actually the main character and then you get your own story

Most doomed yes, Sayaka wins.

Seju is an asshole. Sayaka is not an asshole.

“Mandarin oranges” is a marketing term.

No one cares what botanists say when there’s money to be made. Lol

(BTW, I happen to think Cute Little Boy is a pain in the ass. Mostly.)

What's all this about cute little boy's asses?

Syntax, Nezchan, syntax. Well, idiom, I guess it would be.

But nothing to trouble the authorities, at any rate.

“Mandarin oranges” is a marketing term.

No one cares what botanists say when there’s money to be made. Lol

(BTW, I happen to think Cute Little Boy is a pain in the ass. Mostly.)

last edited at Jun 8, 2019 7:33PM

OK, juice oranges (like the ones on the tree in my backyard) can indeed be a b*tch to peel and eat, because they're really--wait for it--juicy. Other varieties can be much easier, and navel oranges can be almost as easy as tangerines. And then there are tangelos . . .

^ Nothing happens in the story?!? SJ goes to the pharmacy, the kid from the bus shows up, and there's citrus fruit!

What do you want--an invasion of demons from another dimension?

There are many more varieties of oranges than that, including hybrids, with highly variable ease of peeling.

Where I'm from, citrus is grown year 'round, but even where citrus is not local, an orange is an incredibly common snack to pack in a school kid's lunch.

EDIT: Seriously, I have an orange tree and a tangerine tree in my backyard.

last edited at Jun 8, 2019 2:54PM

Student Council is responsible for the management of school events, and they assist the teachers in organizing and interacting with the students. It's a big responsibility, and an honors student like Sayaka is definitely going to want that on her CV when applying for college admissions. I guarantee that while being near Touko was probably a strong factor in the decision, Sayaka was definitely not oblivious to the other benefits (and responsibilities) of being in Student Council.

And we recall that Sayaka assumed that she was going to be the school Queen Bee herself until she was blown away by the Flower of Nipponese Womanhood that is Touko—she makes a natural second-in-command, whatever her romantic feelings for Touko.

And it’s a given that her friendship with Touko wasn’t just a charade that she put on to allow her to be around her loved one—she would have continued at that friend/assistant/confidante level indefinitely if Touko hadn’t changed emotionally so as to allow Sayaka to think she might have a chance. So both Sayaka’s sense of responsibility and her stoicism about her romantic feelings would keep her on the job to the end.

After all, we’re talking about arguably the greatest third wheel in love-triangle history—and perhaps the most doomed.

Okay I am not going to argue anymore, but I wasn't talking about this situation specifically I was talking in general. And it being a blatant lie is something Amane hopes for, doesn't necessary mean its true.

You really don't have to pay much attention to the narrative and characters to realise that Nene's stated reasons just about assuredly aren't her real ones. What exactly the latter are, and why she's resorting to rather obvious fig-leaf excuses, is conversely something of a central mystery of the story which we will no doubt be finding out piece by piece.

Couldn't agree more. Her apparent pleasure during the popsicle-sex photo session could be acting for the camera, but at that point she really does seem to still like Amane. Add to that her refusal to look Amane in the face when breaking up with her, and finally her statement, "I can't do this ... anymore...I want to stop...", which suggests that something other than simple loss of romantic interest is going on.

And I suspect that senpai is not the only potentially manipulative figure in the background--Sensei Hot Stuff and the Ice Queen model manager each look like they could have their own, perhaps less-than-nurturing, agenda.

This has become a very bizarre conversation. IF these were real people [a whole bunch of random ethical/moralizing about what’s OK, not OK, what any given reader would or would not do, would or would not accept, etc., etc., etc.]

Happens a lot when the forum's SJW of PC is involved. (You know who I'm talking about.)

Those terms are quite meaningless.

If you want to insult someone do it directly and specifically, not with jargon.

last edited at Jun 7, 2019 4:12PM

This has become a very bizarre conversation. IF these were real people [a whole bunch of random ethical/moralizing about what’s OK, not OK, what any given reader would or would not do, would or would not accept, etc., etc., etc.]

In the event, however, these are, unless I am greatly deluded about the nature of real people, NOT real people, and they do not exist except as we see them in the panels. Therefore we are expected, as is normal when reading fiction, to triangulate among real-life norms, general narrative conventions, and the implicit and explicit premises created by the individual storyworld.

The proposition that, “One day you act deeply in love, the next day (a highly significant ceremonial day, by the way) you blow your lover off, and that’s fine because life,” is . . . of limited relevance to the topic at hand.

I've been on both ends of it both ways--unrequited and unrequiting--and it just fucking depends.

Sometimes people stay friends because they, you know, really like each other, and finding people like that isn't easy.

Sometimes people need to distance themselves because it's too awkward and painful, and they don't want to hurt each other/be hurt.

If there ever was a YMMV situation . . .

Hate to sound unappreciative considering I'm reading this thing for free, but literal fuck all happens in these chapters. And I don't even mean romantically since I was genuinely surprised at the jump from subtext to outright kissing but the chapters are just so... empty.

This comment just made me yawn.

BV, sometimes your posts are baffling in a variety of different ways, and sometimes they're just pure gems.

^The latter.

Basic human decency dictates that you actually tell a person why you break up with them and don't just make a half-assed excuse.

Without even looking the person in the eye. . . .

Amane doesn’t say that Nene’s reason isn’t good enough—she just hopes to get back together.

Narratively, the “I just stopped loving you” thing (in itself) is (or would be without further development) weak storytelling—it’s what authors do (especially in the romance genre) to clear the decks of a necessary but unwanted character—“My first husband just decided to leave one day,” “Dad found someone else,” etc., thereby creating a divorcee, or abandoned child, or whatever, in order to focus on a protagonist going forward.

This story is centered on the previous relationship between Nene and Amane. To simply leave the cause of their breakup as a routine change of heart by Nene for unspecified reasons seems like it would be incommensurate with the emotional intensity of everything else that’s going on in the story.

Chances that Nene fell out of love with Amane for “no real reason” = [ Maybe more than 0, but vanishingly small.]

Sure, things “just happen that way” in real life, but they rarely do in stories, and I don’t get the sense that this one is going for gritty everyday realism.

Stories are about reasons, and when one is withheld like the reason for that breakup (given the story’s focus on the former-ness of the Nene-Amane romantic relationship), it’s highly unlikely to turn out to be that Nene just realized the day before graduation that she wasn’t all that into Amane anymore.

My money is on something else going on with Nene that we know very little about as of yet.

“I didn’t mean for you to see that”: bullshit.

Useless lesbian princesses, indeed.

As someone with extensive experience of high-school low-self-esteem, I will say that this is some world-class high-school low-self-esteem.

“Person would never want to be with me” when person is with you right that very second.

Well-played (or poorly played—not sure which is praise in this context.)

For the sake of maintaining an interesting story, I hope the husband isn't a villain. That seems like the standard route taken in stories like this, because it somehow absolves the cheating spouse of all guilt and makes the audience feel more comfortable. But stories about cheating aren't supposed to make you feel comfortable! They're supposed to raise interesting questions, put the characters in difficult positions, and make you question what it means to be a "good" person.

Too many series (fucking "My Unrequited Love") attempt to remove that aspect and end up with a really reductive narrative.

Um, yes. What you said.

So, all these "I don't like cheating" posts--is that saying, "I don't wish to read stories that contain cheating by fictional characters," or "I find cheating morally objectionable"?

Because although I've read plenty of mysteries, I'd never say, "I like murder."

^ Dear lord, this is mere definitional fundamentalism. Anyone can occasionally show elements of a character trope (as even you admit Yuu does at least once) without “being” that character type.

“Stereotypes” apply when a character (or real-life person) is understood as having no other characteristics than those of the stereotype.

This whole discussion is irrelevant to the point I raised, which is the absurdity of the premise that enables this extremely grounded and non-absurd story:

Yuu: “I can’t fall in love with anyone, and I won’t fall in love with you.”

Touko: “OMG! That’s the hottest thing I’ve ever heard!”

moments of denial and repressed feelings.

You’ve just cited the absolute essence of tsundere.

And there was a reason I used the phrase “slightest whiff.”

last edited at Jun 5, 2019 2:00AM

Sayaka is just respecting a worthy opponent after all, Yuu basically trounced her from day one. Her last minute confession was but a desperate hail mary whilst the opposing team is already up by 14 points with ten seconds to go.

Accurate enough as a summary of the outcome, but your metaphor reminds us that Touko’s original love epiphany about Yuu was that Yuu didn’t want anything from Touko.

“Everybody” wanted Touko to be perfect (or so Touko believed).
The parade of confessants, male and female, wanted Touko as a lover.
Sayaka wanted Touko as a friend (or so she led to Touko to believe).

The point is that, because she (silently) wanted something more from Touko that she was willing to give, Sayaka never had a chance—Yuu outplayed her by not playing the same game.

(That’s why there’s always been the slightest whiff of tsundere about the otherwise darling, doting Yuu—Touko could only be wooed by a total disavowal of courtship, and Yuu even convinced herself that the things she did for her senpai she “would have done the same for anybody.”)

Glad this isn’t a one-shot.

Maybe I am a little a-hole after all

Know thyself, sayeth the sage. :)

Sayaka has been depicted as (slightly) better than us mere humans all along. Better than me, certainly.

Obviously, this series wanted to be a 4-koma all along.

It’s terrible when society won’t let you express your true nature.

I can see where some readers might find the ending unsatisfying, but I like Hakamada Mera’s tendency to throw slight curveballs—the stories aren’t wildly unexpected, but not quite by-the-numbers, either.

Love the mom's yandere chuckle--Hino-san couldn't do it better.