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Blastaar
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joined Jul 29, 2017

I just treat the two tags as interchangeable and call it a day.

No shi*t. At least we can be grateful this place wants nothing to do with ‘shoujo ai.’ We’d never hear the end of it.

Blastaar
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joined Jul 29, 2017

Oh, good, a Yuri vs. Subtext tag war—those are always so delightfully informative and productive.

Incorrect, you didn't get my point. This is a two weights two measures thing, Hanigare has way more evidences than this title and it's subtext, but this one it's a full-blown yuri, what's the reasoning? Logic? You either tag both as yuri or as subtext other than that it's unreasonable

I get your point perfectly, which has nothing to do with mine. By trying to do away with no-man’s-land—the disputed boundary between yuri and subtext—you are engaging in the war while asserting that I am incorrect that there is a war.

I don’t care at all whether either one or both of these stories is tagged one way or the other; I’m also perfectly comfortable with the fact that the labels “yuri” and “subtext” (like all genre categories at their boundaries) are inevitably ambiguous, context-dependent, and not subject to objective measurement.

I hope the discussion ends with a consensus agreement about the correct tag to everyone’s satisfaction; it will be the first such I have seen.

last edited at Jul 9, 2018 1:09PM

Blastaar
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joined Jul 29, 2017

Oh, good, a Yuri vs. Subtext tag war—those are always so delightfully informative and productive.

Maybe we can get a threesome going with Yuri crush.

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joined Jul 29, 2017

Haha, I don't think people got my breed of humor. Sorry guys, will limit my stupidity from now on.

I think I got it, and moreover I think you’re right—that collar signifies, but exactly how it signifies in this context is very hard to say.

This story is like an old-fashioned “lovable orphan opens the heart of troubled curmudgeon” story with a subtext of “psychologically damaged adult grooms powerless child for sex.”

And it’s one of the cutest things I’ve ever read.

Blastaar
Their Story discussion 05 Jul 11:29
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joined Jul 29, 2017

I just re-read most of this, and if eye-sex is a thing, these guys have been, like, blush-sex addicts—they’re always going at it.

Also noticed this for the first time, to my embarrassment: the little one’s name is consistently transliterated as QIU Tong, not QUI Tong. If I ever did register it before, I dismissed it as one of the occasional typos in the series.

All I can say in my own defense is that from an English-speaker’s point of view, a ‘U’ has absolutely no business being that close to a ‘Q’ if they’re not going to be beside one another, like the rules say.

But there it is.

And as a Brazilian guy, the letter "Q" and "U" have a LOT of business together in my language, so it´s significantly more difficult for us portuguese speakers...

I’m literally off to my sort-of-annual week in Lisboa in 15 minutes to meet up with my spouse and our Brazilian friend who both spent the last month in Rio and São Paulo, so I know what you’re talking about.

Blastaar
Their Story discussion 05 Jul 09:37
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joined Jul 29, 2017

I just re-read most of this, and if eye-sex is a thing, these guys have been, like, blush-sex addicts—they’re always going at it.

Also noticed this for the first time, to my embarrassment: the little one’s name is consistently transliterated as QIU Tong, not QUI Tong. If I ever did register it before, I dismissed it as one of the occasional typos in the series.

All I can say in my own defense is that from an English-speaker’s point of view, a ‘U’ has absolutely no business being that close to a ‘Q’ if they’re not going to be beside one another, like the rules say.

But there it is.

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joined Jul 29, 2017

...

Omg! Master has an actual job!

They’ve mentioned her “work” before, and it’s always when she’s writing. At first I thought it might be, I dunno, paperwork for the estate or something, but she’s got a roomful of books, so it’s been obvious that she’s a literary type. This confirms she gets money for it, though.

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joined Jul 29, 2017

It’s clear from the insistence in this chapter that Mel is “just a child,” as well as from the introduction of a new character to serve as an external conscience by explicitly raising the issue of pedophilia, that Itou Hachi enjoys constructing and then performing on a very idiosyncratic moral/ethical tightrope.

It would have been easy enough to construct the story so as to mute its (as random says) unfortunate implications—Mel could be a bit older, the beastkin could be established as maturing much earlier in life, or there could even just be a flat-out introductory statement, like in her other works, that “it’s a yuri world, one where age-gap is perfectly fine.”

But no, she insists on walking that tightrope, with some of us down here yelling up, “Go for it, Master! Yuri overdrive!” and some of us saying, “Get down from there before something awful happens!” and some of us silently thinking some of both.

At least there’s a giant mattress of some of the finest cuteness in the universe to soften the landing if she falls.

(PS: If I want more Master/Mel bath scenes, is that bad?)

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joined Jul 29, 2017

Oh, granted—that was just a back-of-the-envelope list. I would remind you, however, that without grandma Collette we don’t have someone to cover Mel and Master with a blanket when they fall asleep together on a bench in the garden.

Just saying.

But what about her gross insinuation that she knew it was only a matter of time before Mel's pajamas got torn [open by the ravenous Master]?
Wait, I'm further helping your case, aren't I...

Like Mist in the latest chapter, you just have a dirty mind. Collette is, among many other things, a professional laundress. She knows the status of every scrap of clothing on the estate like she knows the back of her own hand, and if fabric is getting thin, she knows when there’s no use mending it.

It’s only recently that she’s had to take the effects of bondage gear on sleepwear into account, however.

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joined Jul 29, 2017

I’m not saying Mist is a lesbian; I’m just saying that, perhaps by coincidence, Mist has the same style and fashion sense of about a dozen lesbians I know.

Also loved the subtext:
“Special? I don’t see flowers and stars when I look at you, Mist, so yes, I suppose Mel is special to me.”

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joined Jul 29, 2017

Must...protect....cute fluffy maid moe blob...

With spherical baby bird—it’s moe blobs all the way down.

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joined Jul 29, 2017

I'm sorry, but I have to firmly disagree. I think butterflies would have to be above cute tea grandma, in Itou Hachi's mind.

Oh, granted—that was just a back-of-the-envelope list. I would remind you, however, that without grandma Collette we don’t have someone to cover Mel and Master with a blanket when they fall asleep together on a bench in the garden.

Just saying.

Blastaar
Their Story discussion 04 Jul 13:09
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joined Jul 29, 2017

Not to be stereotyping or anything, but I’m getting “top” vibes from Qui Tong.

And not for the first time, either,

Blastaar
Their Story discussion 04 Jul 10:28
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joined Jul 29, 2017

^Lesbian elephants are notoriously touchy about their privacy.

They’re dating. Qui Tong is pretty shy about verbalizing it, though.

(“Dating” defined as doing as much as possible together and blushing at each other a lot while doing it.)

Blastaar
Their Story discussion 04 Jul 06:42
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joined Jul 29, 2017

And a QT-initiated hand-holding! Time to pick out the wedding china!

(Do they have wedding china in China?)

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joined Jul 29, 2017

And Renai Manga isn't all bad if you like mangaka stories (it's mostly subtext and no yuri though).

Aw, c’mon—how many blushes and sparkles does it take to count as yuri?

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/renai_manga_bonus_chapter#6

And they spend the next two pages holding hands. In party dresses! In the moonlight! And then they move in together!

(It’s true—that series does play coy about their relationship, especially in the bonus chapters. But it’s two women in love.)

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joined Jul 29, 2017

I’m pretty sure that in this case, Itou Hachi’s creative process went something like:

  • There should be little girls with furry ears and bushy tails. Cute ones.
  • And in a maid costume.
  • If a maid, then a boss, who is a woman, because yuri.
  • The maid should climb up on things then slip and fall so the master can catch her. Cutely.
  • The maid should be an orphan or something like that. A cute one.
  • You know what else would be cute?—a cute yet mildly S&M collar to go with the cute maid costume.
  • A cute grandma to bring tea.
  • Butterflies.

Without denying in the least the somewhat disturbing nature of the implications of this story’s premises, I think the detailed social, economic, and cultural substructure of this fictional world is way down the list of the author’s priorities for this story.

In short, the primary answer to the question “where do the beastkin come from?” is: from Itou Hachi’s desire that there be cute little girls with furry ears and bushy tails wearing maid’s aprons.

And yuri. Cute yuri.

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joined Jul 29, 2017

I am a medium-low laugh-out-loud-to-myself person. I do it sometimes, but somewhat rarely.

But I always laugh out loud to chapters of this. Today:

  • Arisa wanting copies of the “incriminating” pictures
  • Arisa’s expression when Mari put her arm around her
  • Arisa’s reaction to the idea of “growing up”

A number of other things were funny. But those made me laugh out loud.

Blastaar
Touma-kun discussion 02 Jul 11:48
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joined Jul 29, 2017

^I got the point long ago, thanks. There is a significant difference, however, between saying, “To me, Touma is a bland and boring character, and I am not interested in her,” and “Touma is a bland and boring character to me, and therefore should not be attractive to the characters in the story.”

I have read many stories with characters who were hypnotists, yet none of those characters hypnotized me.

Dude.

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joined Jul 29, 2017

There’s no doubt, as I have said here before in some detail, that there are marginally creepy and disturbing undertones to certain aspects of this story. There are other aspects that may or not be disturbing except we don’t have much information about them (like much of anything about beastkin families of birth, for example), and since Itou Hachi as a storyteller never seems particularly interested in detailed world-building, we probably never will.

Age-gap stories always involve a certain degree of squick, and it would take some much more mathematically minded person than I am to calculate the squick-multiplication factor of an interspecies, same-sex, age-gap, unequal-social-and-economic-status relationship.

That said, some of the discussion here reminds me of the question that came up about Nakatani Nio’s “Commearication”—does fondling a person’s fox ears count as sexual? It’s just kind of hard to extrapolate the ethical implications of that from everyday life because human beings don’t have fox ears.

(I hope that last assertion did not require a spoiler tag.)

last edited at Jul 3, 2018 3:50AM

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joined Jul 29, 2017

Child slavery is not cute.

Mel is not a slave.

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joined Jul 29, 2017

Besides being cute and adorable (which is just another way of saying “Itou Hachi”), this chapter is, like, both serious development and crucial backstory.

I love the chapters of industrial-strength cuteness, but this one suggests the possibility of the story actually going somewhere.

Blastaar
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joined Jul 29, 2017

Heavensrun, if others are like me, I think we’ve been avoiding being specific about Touko’s immediate reaction to a Yuu confession because of all the things both you and ColdGoldLazarus have been discussing—we’re confident (or at least I am) that things will ultimately work out, but it’s just not like Nakatani to have Little Miss Tied Up In Psychological Knots suddenly be like, “Kisses and dating, Yuu? I thought you’d never ask!” There are too many possible narrative paths to feel very sure about any one of them at this point.

That said, Touko’s “love is a shackle” idea is very specifically tied up with the way she (previously) was living her life according to other people’s expectations, so when her attitude towards herself changes, I’m pretty sure that view of love inevitably will change too.

In a way, although not the way she means it, love is a kind of restriction on oneself—you start to consider your own actions from the perspective of how they affect the other person and how that person will respond to them. But that example she gives—“if you did that, I would fall out of love with you”—is particularly toxic, (I mean, who even says that in a relationship?) and she doesn’t understand that the other one, “I love that about you,” doesn’t mean, “I love you only because of that.” You may like and admire someone because of the list of their positive personal qualities; you love them because they’re who they are and not someone else.

It is notable that Touko’s “anti-love” speech is placed against a drawerful of confession letters where people list all the things they like about her—Yuu would be well-advised to stick to the theme of, “I love you however you turn out, senpai” when she gets around to throwing her own hat in the ring.

last edited at Jul 1, 2018 6:51AM

Blastaar
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joined Jul 29, 2017

Sayaka’s development has firmly established her as President and CEO of a “I Want My Loved One To Be Happy” franchise. She wants what’s best for Touko, and (assuming Touko’s emotional rehab is complete and permanent, or nearly so) she knows that Yuu was the catalyst for breaking Touko’s emotional logjam when she herself didn’t have the nerve to act.

We’re not entirely sure what she knows about Yuu and Touko’s relationship and about Yuu’s feelings toward Touko, but one thing we certainly do know is that Sayaka is an extremely sharp cookie. Rei suspects a romantic relationship on solid but very scanty evidence; Sayaka has been watching them like a hawk as they interact right in front of her almost every day.

It’s theoretically possible that things could fall out such that, from Sayaka’s perspective, Yuu might appear to be out of the picture and Touko might seem to be receptive to picking up where the play left off, yuri-wise. But anyone putting money on Sayaka seriously misunderstanding the emotional landscape, let alone acting maliciously or selfishly where Touko is concerned, is facing very long odds indeed.

Blastaar
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joined Jul 29, 2017

Like most other people, I think all signs point to a cheesecake (Rei’s recipe)-and-roses endgame, but, once again, I think it’s a remarkable testament to Nakatani’s writing that not only do we not know how it’s going to work out, but alternative endings are still on the table.

Sayaka has been too stand-up all the way through to gratuitously throw a roadblock in Yuu’s way now. And Touko has always seemed sincere in her affection for and attraction toward Yuu—the question is, was this all provisional on the asymmetrical dynamic of the relationship? At this point I don’t see Touko saying, “You promised not to fall for me—contract is voided,” but she conceivably could be unaware of the depth of Yuu’s feelings and say, “You don’t need to put up with me anymore; let’s just be senpai-kouhai again.” But that would just provide an opportunity for Yuu to state her case.

Actually, I’m only guessing because it’s fun—we’ve been in such good hands with this author that I’m perfectly content to just wait and see.

last edited at Jun 30, 2018 12:00PM