What the heck is wrong with this girl?

Nothing is wrong with her. She likes Yori, but doesn't feel like it's romantic yet. She enjoys being around her, she wants it to work out so they're both happy, an she's worried that it won't. That's a valid way to feel, so what's the problem?

She doesn’t realize that she’s in a yuri manga, which entails certain obligations and responsibilities to yuri manga readers—i.e., to make “progress” ASAP.

If she’d just look at the title pages or check out the story tags, she’d know this.

Hey, whaddaya think this is, Deadpool?

a few drawings in chapter two look very hentai-ish:

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/pocha_climb_ch02#14
https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/pocha_climb_ch02#16

usually a sign that the story isn't going to be all that wholesome. hopefully it remains cute.

So low angle shot = hentai-ish.
Ok then lol

Yeah, I mean, those shots are a bit sexy, but that's literally the joke on one of them.

I had a mental breakdown and my heart is still not over it, so read this just added more of that feeling to it. So I’ll just sleep it over. (Not that anyone wants to know or anything)

But I also wanted to say that, that scene very much remind me of ushio breakdown in sasameki koto chapter 31.
https://mangakakalot.com/chapter/sasameki_koto/chapter_31

That was both worse and not as bad. It was worse because (IMO) the characters were better developed, so I empathized with Ushio's breakdown more, but it wasn't as bad because you could tell that those idiots were actually mutually in love and whenever they just -talked about it- (and you knew they would eventually) it would all work out.

Here Mio's feelings for Shizuka feel more fragile, and Shizuka seems more like she's taking shelter from her broken heart in Mio's fondness.

What the heck is wrong with this girl?

Nothing is wrong with her. She likes Yori, but doesn't feel like it's romantic yet. She enjoys being around her, she wants it to work out so they're both happy, an she's worried that it won't. That's a valid way to feel, so what's the problem?

Heavensrun posted:

Not gonna lie I laughed a lot when the third girl showed up with issues and then rescued by drunkards... Also where are the earthquakes? I thought it was the season XP

<_<

(not sure if serious)

Very serious, the events in this manga are way too convenient even for fiction, the Yua chan wanted to meet Akemi san, that can be done easily but she got attacked by a group of drunk guys IN FRONT OF THE STORE

I should clarify, I wasn't sure if you were being sarcastic or if you think "earthquake season" is a thing.

As for convenience, they don't come in "seasons", but earthquakes -do- actually kind of tend to bunch up. A fault that has slipped recently is more likely to slip again, and earthquakes are pretty common in Japan.

As for the guys outside the shop, it seems pretty obvious from the following scene that she was there to investigate Akemi because her friends are fighting over her. It's not that much of a coincidence.

last edited at Sep 16, 2019 12:28AM

That isn't the point. It isn't about "saving" someone, it's about people growing and learning from their mistakes. What Igarashi did to Chidori was definitely hurtful and selfish, and Chidori is definitely justified in moving on to someone who is willing to commit to their relationship. That was the right move for her. She rejected the effort to rekindle their relationship and moved on with Nanoha. Nothing about this story suggests that Chidori should have "saved" or tried to "save" her.

I didn't say the story is trying to suggest Chidori should have helped. I say that if Igarashi gets a redemption arc, it might give the impression to some younger readers that in life these type of people are just hurt souls who are good deep down.
And I'm also not saying that we can tell for sure if Igarashi is that irredeemable person. We can't.
I was just thinking that not everyone needs a redemption in a story, and sometimes I'd personally prefer to see these characters being represented for what it is, and not ending up making everyone a good guy. Just a thing that I'd like to see more, not saying Igarashi is necessarily this type.
We can have characters being more bad than good, but also having good qualities without redeeming them in the end.

I don't think we're really disagreeing on anything important. I mean, my first instinct is to point out that some of "these type of people" (meaning people who do something that hurts you) ARE hurt souls who are good, not necessarily even deep own, and teaching kids that sometimes people don't mean to hurt you also has value beside the lesson that some other people want to hurt you because it's fun for them. (I like to hope that the former are more common than the latter, but I waver on that.)

As for Igarashi specifically, yeah, not everyone needs redemption, the author has just made some decisions in portraying Igarashi that gave me the impression that she might.

Either way, I think the lesson here is pretty clear. When someone hurts you, it's okay to cut them off and move on, whether the person you're cutting off is good or not. (In fact, that would also be a pretty good reason for keeping Igarashi's intent ambiguous.)

last edited at Sep 15, 2019 7:19PM

(So my other "last post" on this is about my actual read of the text, this is about the ethical meta-text of interpreting Igarashi sympathetically.)

I agree with you. I guess most of the people who see Igarashi as more sympathetic haven't been through a situation with someone like her to see the actual impact it has on the other person. Even if she is struggling herself with her sexuality, playing with someone like that isn't an excuse. You can struggle but not take the other person down with you. She wasn't strong enough to admit she liked Chidori which is fine on its on, but "messing" with her is pure selfish and manipulative. It's easy to fall into the trap that people like her are just hurting, but struggling and taking other down with you is not mutually exclusive.

I am not oblivious to the impact that a broken heart can have on someone. I've been on both sides of that, but your underlying assumption here is that Igarashi is "playing", and "messing with her". There is no consideration of the possibility that maybe her affections were earnest and honest, and her regret was sincere. I can't say it is with certainty, but I also don't think it's fair to assume that it isn't.

It's not like we have a pattern of behavior from Igarashi. She hasn't left a trail of broken hearts, as far as we can see. She hasn't strung Chidori along and broken her heart over and over. We know she did some emotional cheating on her boyfriend, which is definitely wrong, and she kept her boyfriend a secret from the girl she confessed to, which was also definitely wrong. And the "We're both girls" line was definitely hurtful. But she's a kid. Kids do and say stupid things sometimes, especially when it comes to matters like romance and first love.

And like I said before, in this situation she can be seen as more sympathetic, because Chidori got over it quickly because she had a good support system. Igarashi could have done way bigger of a damage to a person who wasn't as strong as Chidori. Then people wouldn't root for her as much, but since we haven't seen that happening in the manga, I guess we can brush it off and root for her only because we want more Yuri.

The outcome isn't that important to me in this, though. I mean, if Igarashi was just playing around with Chidori's feelings, then regardless of how hard Chidori takes it, fuck Igarashi at that point, she's a garbage person who deserves to meet Truck-san in a passionate embrace in the middle of the crosswalk.

But if her feelings for Chidori were sincere, if she messed up and feels guilty about it, the fact that Chidori was able to move on and get over her is actually something of a relief. Like, I can imagine the story that comes out of the alternative, and it is dark and heartbreaking for everyone involved. I'd feel -worse- for Igarashi than I do in the current paradigm, because making a mistake that loses you your first love to somebody else is sad, but making a mistake that destroys the life of your first love and leaves you wracked with guilt and grief for the rest of your life is tragic.

Intentions aren't everything, but they're still important.

Sure, we might see her evolving in the future chapters, or even getting a gf. But this is rarely what happens irl. So I'd appreciate a story that doesn't always sugarcoat situations like that, and younger people who read these don't go out in life thinking that these people are just poor little souls who, with the right amount of love, will be "saved" in the end. Or that they have to "save" them.

That isn't the point. It isn't about "saving" someone, it's about people growing and learning from their mistakes. What Igarashi did to Chidori was definitely hurtful and selfish, and Chidori is definitely justified in moving on to someone who is willing to commit to their relationship. That was the right move for her. She rejected the effort to rekindle their relationship and moved on with Nanoha. Nothing about this story suggests that Chidori should have "saved" or tried to "save" her. Suggesting that Igarashi might not be all bad isn't the same thing as saying that Chidori should've taken her up on the valentine gift.

last edited at Sep 15, 2019 4:17PM

Blas pls, we already went over that ground at quite some length.

I don’t particularly care about Igarashi one way or the other as an imaginary human being; I’m just quite surprised that so many readers are so eager to read against the grain of the story in regard to this character.

I'm not really sure you get to say that when your villainous reading of her character and role requires rather arbitrarily going against the text of the story...

(I know, a lot of us are vocally ready to move on from this, but I still feel like there's some things worth saying, so I'ma say them. If nobody has anything significant to add after this, I'll let it drop)

Eh, I think you're kind of both right? I've said I get where the hostile reading of her character comes from, and I meant it, I just think what we've seen is ambiguous. I don't think either camp is reading "against the grain of the story". I could see it going either way, basically, and there are some panel and scene blocking decisions that seem awfully calculated to preserve that ambiguity, which seems odd to me if she's a throwaway villain.

One that stands out to me is the fact that we can't see her face when she actually says the line that breaks Chidori's heart. This is the main thing I wanted to get out before letting the topic drop, because it's been germinating in the back of my mind this whole time. Every other time she says or does anything, we have a view of her expression that we can draw her mental state from, but on that panel, the sun is suddenly in our eyes. Why? What was her expression in that moment, that the author consciously decided to hide from us? A simple smile? Resignation? Callousness? Sorrow? Tears? If her expression in that moment would confirm a villainous reading, I don't see the point of hiding her face from us, and by extension, from Chidori. It would eliminate the ambiguity and confirm Chidori's worst suspicions. So hiding it only makes sense to me if it's either meant to be ambiguous narratively to us, or if it's meant to be ambiguous to Chidori to make her waver.

Since Chidori hasn't wavered, it feels like we're the ones being kept out of the loop. But hey, it could just be that the author was trying to save effort drawing that panel, and I'm reading too much into it. It feels like a choice to me, tho.

Also, coming back from college to see Chidori seems like an odd move if she didn't have real feelings for her. Why not just move on to somebody fresh at that point? That suggests she's hung up on her. It's kind of a lot of effort to go through to reconnect with someone you aren't going to see at college that has already explicitly turned you down. For what? The thrill of the chase? Eh, maybe. There are definitely people like that, but she also folds so easily when she sees that Chidori has somebody she loves that loves her back.

It could be that now that the author is done using her to prod Nanoha and Chidori into advancing their relationship, and now that Chidori is a little more over her, that we'll never see her again, but I feel like that would be a missed opportunity for some significant character depth.

Only that's no moonbox, it's the curb around the base of the tree...

Also Nanoha is stooped over slightly.

On an entirely different note I'm probably not the only one who finds this institutionalised literal moral policing sort of creepy. >_>

Eh, we don't really see what she's actually on the lookout for. Would she have a problem with the kiss? Would she have a problem with a hetero couple sharing a smooch under the fireworks? Or is she on the lookout for heavy petting or banging in the bushes? Or girls being taken advantage of by older guys? Teens having careless sexual encounters can mean STIs and teen pregnancy, and that kind of stuff can ruin lives.

There's a -reason- kids are kept under adult supervision until they're past most of their teen years.

That said, the flow of the scene suggests that they at least think they slipped under her radar, so maybe she is just on the lookout for casual smooches.

Wait, so camera girl was going commando?

No? I mean, at least, there's nothing in the scene to suggest that, and I'm unclear why you would think so.

I love the shocked face of the girls sitting next to them on the last pannel. XD

Yeah, this amused the hell out of me as well.

Not gonna lie I laughed a lot when the third girl showed up with issues and then rescued by drunkards... Also where are the earthquakes? I thought it was the season XP

<_<

(not sure if serious)

This one of the reasons why I've recently started contemplating a different approach to Japanese-to-English translation of manga that's partly inspired by a novel approach used by the translator group of Samayoeru Tensei-sha-tachi no Relive Game (Psycho Play) to tackle the problem of the MC (originally male but magically transformed to female in Chapter 1) repeatedly switching between male and female pronouns within the same speech bubble in early chapters. Psycho Play's solution is to simply translate both as "I", but gloss each one with the appropriate gender symbol in a surprisingly non-obtrusive manner (here is an example from Chapter 3).

My hypothetical approach is to translate normally until we hit situations where gender ambiguity is crucial, in which case we immediately switch to gender-neutral pronouns that are glossed with gendered signs where appropriate based on either pre-established facts (e.g. we know X has a mistaken assumption about Y's actual sex, while Z does not) or the most plausible expectations (e.g. we know X's actual sex is not known to the surrounding crowd, while the present Y knows it). Yes, that may very well make the dialogue look weird and "unnatural" to a native English speaker... and that's perfectly fine. You want to know why?

Because the characters aren't talking in English, but in Japanese, which operates by a very different set of rules and conventions. Localization may be an important part of the translation process (the degree of importance is arguable, but it's undeniable that finding the closest equivalents in meaning is vital for creating a coherent, intelligible and easily "digestible" result for the average reader), but it should never be the overriding priority. The obsession with the idea that JTE requires forcing the narration and dialogue into the mold of "natural" English (which is a subjective label varying from one country to another, and even within the same country in some cases, sometimes to drastic degrees of divergence) at the expense of any natural ambiguities and the like from the source, all in the name of localization, is something that pisses me off about a lot of translators.

Speaking for myself, I may have initially found the results of the "accuracy is more important than localization" paradigm confusing, but AFAIR it didn't take me that long to get used it and even start to kinda-unconsciously see it as just another "Japanese variety" of English. God knows how some real-life varieties (whether you choose to call them "dialects", "accents", or some other term) of English are borderline if not outright unintelligible to speakers of more "popular" varieities (e.g. American and British) that aren't used to such exotic varieties.

To put that last paragraph another way: I believe that a translator not only has no obligation to coddle a potential reader by tailoring his "product" to their whims. They should be helping them grow and learn, broaden their horizons in terms of knowledge about the foreign cultures from which the translated work comes from whenever such culture pops up in said work. If the reader isn't willing to grow and learn, then that's their loss, not the translator's, who should just move on and forget about those who have chosen to willfully wallow in their own ignorance (which is sometimes driven by such despicable motivations as xenophobia and ethnic/cultural/national chauvinism).

I think it's a decision the translator has to make about who their audience is. You can fully localize the culture of the work, you can refuse to localize anything about the culture of the work, (clarifying points of confusion with translator's notes or even just leaving your audience to fend for themselves,) or you can do anything inbetween.

Each one of those appeals to the sensibilities of a different kind of fan, and what it ultimately comes down to is an artistic choice. And like all artistic choices, it's subjective. (That's not to say a localization can't be objectively bad, but there are subjective decisions in the process of any translated work.)

My personal preference is that you translate if there's an equivalent, and if there isn't an equivalent (like for things like honorifics, for example) You keep the original culture. If you feel like the reader needs context, provide it. Most anime-manga fans will follow you through the small stuff.

last edited at Sep 10, 2019 10:55PM

Also RIP Mio... Not only she found out the truth, she also found out what Shizuka REALLY thinks about her... Seriously, "forced" into a date... I don't think she deserves a second chance.

She didn't say she was forced, she said she was asked forcefully. As in, with fervor. She's trying to express Mio's enthusiasm to make Kaoru jealous.

I mean, not like it matters, the kiss alone is critical damage, but I don't think she was saying that she feels put-upon by Mio. I mean their entire dynamic is that she is turning to Mio for comfort and affection.

Sorry, but I think you didn't pay any attention to what was actually going on. In the first chapter Sana purposely stole Yukino's textbook so she couldn't do her homework and then lied to her that she had forgotten it at school. Then she purposely gave her the complicated solutions with the advanced formulas so the teacher would find out she copied the homework. All of this just so Yukino would feel useless and guilty and cry her eyes out to Sana.
And those inner thoughts of hers are extremely messed up too. Obsession to the point of psychologically crippling someone is not what any 4-komas do.

Comparing this to Hino-san no baka is an insult to it. Everything in Hino-san is completely consensual and doesn't overstep lines. While Hino employs manipulation too, Koguma is always in control. Not so here, because Yukino never figures out she is being tricked and humiliated.

Also, Hino cares a LOT about what Koguma thinks of her. and bows to her wishes at any point. When she teases Koguma, it goes on because Koguma enjoys being teased.

In this she literally says she'll force herself on the other girl if she tries to get away. This is waay creepier.

No, you’re seriously going to argue the point that Yuu doesn’t count as a “sporty” girl in the context of this series?

Except for some inferences about her home life and the fact that she reads manga and listens to pop music, that’s pretty much all we do know about Yuu’s past before the series begins—that she was a dedicated member of the softball team who was considered a reliable senpai by her juniors. We see her go unwind at a batting cage with Maki, and she’s a pretty decent bowler. (She’s a little short to be outstanding in the relay races, but she does okay there too.)

Or is this just about mincing words?

I mean the original point you were making is that I was stereotyping sporty girls as lesbians, and my counter argument is that I was suggesting that she was just one of a few "sporty" girls, most of whom are definitely straight. I don't know how serious you were being, but I kinda resent the implication a little.

With Yuu, the only point I was actually making is that when you said "sporty", she didn't immediately come to mind for me. It's about how I personally use the term. She's an avid reader who works in a bookstore, and she's in stuco as well. She's also a jellyfish geek. She's physically active, sure, but she engages in a variety of activities. Sports isn't her "thing" like it is for Serizawa, Natsuki, and Akari. If you want to call that sporty, okay, sure, but that's a pretty broad term, then.

If I was going to describe Yuu, the term that comes to mind for me is something more like "well-rounded".

My best guess is that was simply a means of feeling out Nanoha's relationship with Chidori in a manner she could readily BS off as an off-colour joke - and going by that rather satisfied-looking smirk she made at Nano's startled reaction whatever hunch made her do it in the first place was amply confirmed.

It's probably telling that when she comes see Chidori again the next day she essentially starts probing for her side of the relationship right out of the gate, which seems somewhat atypical behaviour (Igarashi appears to be one of those people who prefer to talk 'round the actual topic and only come to the point after circling "like cat a bowl of hot porridge", to butcher an old proverb, for a while). She's also rather conspicuously refraining from the affectionate body language she originally used with Chidori both from first meeting way back when and the previous day before the meddling kidsNanoha & potential new club recruits barged in (may be her default behaviour with other girls, but hard to tell given the nonexistent sample size we have of her interactions with ladies not called Chidori) and instead almost seems to make a point of staying at an arm's length.
If I were to make a guess she put whatever plans she had on hold until she could get a better idea of Chidori's specific relationship situation; would imagine the last thing she wanted to do was repeating her previous fatal error of blundering into ill-advised decisions without a full grasp of the context and what the Hell she's actually doing.

That pretty well sums up why I think she did it.

Also, I don't think her shock at the end is disbelief or even surprise that two girls can have a relationship. I think it's surprise that -these- two girls have a relationship. Basically she's processing the fact that Chidori and Nanoha have actually made it work, and that she's missed her shot. Remember my read is that she wants to win Chidori back, and while she suspects something is up with Nanoha, she's still -HOPING- it's just a crush, or one-sided, or ambiguous. When Chidori confirms it's a serious, actual romantic relationship, she gives up, apologizes for causing trouble, and gives one last little lie to gloss over any potential drama and seems to leave pretty gracefully.

I can see where the hostility comes from: She fits a lot of the user-sempai tropes that you see so often in these stories. But she doesn't have that predatory edge, and she just looks sad so much of the time, she feels to me more like someone that knows she messed up and wants to take it back rather than someone who doesn't care about anything but her own gratification.

So what was the point again of having her senpai coming out of nowhere?

To further unfold Chidori's backstory and give Nanoha a chance to shine?

Yuu isn't sporty, she used to play a sport, so I wasn't thinking of her as such. (I mean, she's STUCO now, that's definitely firmly in the nerd clique. ;p )

Bowling is a sport.

That's a pretty hard reach for the original point.

You know, you people shipping Natsuki and Sayaka are being kind of stereotyping by assuming that every short-haired, sporty girl in YagaKimi is a lesbian . . . wait, I’ll come in again . . .

Hey now, we're (by which I mean I'm) assuming that one out of three short-haired, sporty girls in YagaKimi is a possible lesbian. The one that visibly pined after her best friend's affections after (unknowingly) listen to her gripe about her girlfriend. I don't think that's too unreasonable. ;p

That would be Natsuki’s short-haired (as well as short) sporty now-full-fledged lesbian best friend you’re talking about, correct?

Yuu isn't sporty, she used to play a sport, so I wasn't thinking of her as such. (I mean, she's STUCO now, that's definitely firmly in the nerd clique. ;p )

I was actually thinking of Akari and Serizawa, who are both pretty definitely straight.

As a character, Igarashi is interesting. As a person she is toxic. If this type of person launches into someone who is not strong, or doesn't have a support system, they can do so much damage. And this is willingly. She knows well what she is doing. Because people like this dont have the guts to make a move, they get a sense of fulfillment just by knowing their target hasn't moved on from them. Oftentimes, this is what hides behind the hot and cold treatment. Some bread crumbs just so the person doesn't move on. That Valentine's card was that. She wouldn't have sent it if she was more confident about Chidori's feelings for her. And if Chidori reciprocated, the push phase would begin again.

Chidori had a good friend support system and was confident enough to stop. But if it was a damaged person instead, they would get strung along and become more desperate and needy with time.

You're assuming way too much, though. I agree with you that there are people like that, I don't think there's enough to say that that's Igarashi. We didn't get enough of a picture to see if there's a repeat pattern of push and pull. What we saw could match that, but it's also perfectly consistent with a closeted gay girl in a resigned het relationship falling in love for the first time and not knowing how to process it.

They're children. It's too early to start labeling anybody "toxic".

I loved Natsuki but even though this is a yuri series and I have my yuri goggles cranked up to the max I still didn't expect that flare-up of yuri subtext when Natsuki thought "I wish I could've gotten you excited about softball instead" or something like that.

That is the core of my "Natsuki might be gay or bi" sentiment. I don't think she was head over heels for Yuu or anything, but it does seem to suggest that she wishes that she could've been more special to her.

I don't think there's any particular reason to argue that Natsuki HAS to be gay, but I think there's enough there that it wouldn't be out of left field, either.

Unless Natsuki is an outfielder.

You know, you people shipping Natsuki and Sayaka are being kind of stereotyping by assuming that every short-haired, sporty girl in YagaKimi is a lesbian . . . wait, I’ll come in again . . .

Hey now, we're (by which I mean I'm) assuming that one out of three short-haired, sporty girls in YagaKimi is a possible lesbian. The one that visibly pined after her best friend's affections after (unknowingly) listen to her gripe about her girlfriend. I don't think that's too unreasonable. ;p

Which means I could be utterly, completely wrong. (But even if I am, I won't go back and delete my posts or anything. >_> /cough cough)

I didn't delete them because I'm wrong. I deleted them, because this conversation was going nowhere. I don't have time and nerves to waste on such pointless arguments. Also for the record, you are wrong. Just like Heavensrun with their second post, but whatever. I tried to correct their misinformations in the past, but they either didn't see them or didn't bother to reply, so I give up. Keep talking about things you have no clue about.

(cranks up middle finger) Either make an argument or piss off with the passive agressive "this person is wrong about things that I'm not going to explain or debate about" whinging.

Now, now. No need to provoke further like that. If I--the target--can honestly find the humor in the situation and laugh it off, others should be able to, too. Lets try to not derail too much.

Eh, Nevri specifically called me out as wrong while refusing to say about what or why, and also inferred that I'd ignored their "corrections" in the past, so I feel pretty justified calling out their BS. I wasn't really intending to engage beyond "piss off" unless they wanted to engage in actual discussion.

(I am vaguely curious what "misinformations in the past" they "corrected". I have a vague sense that we've argued before, but I don't really hold any memory of when or in what topic.)

(And yes I see the irony in saying that when I have been one of those discussing the definition and finer points of intimate roles, which is already pretty close to derailment. :) )

I dunno, I think it's relevant. We're talking about Yuu and Touko's relationship dynamic, somebody comes in and says THAT DYNAMIC DOESN'T EXIST, I think it's valid to point out that there are real people in this very thread who are relating their personal lived experience that it does.

That said, the point is made, so...Yeah.

So MY favorite part of the new chapter is when Yuu says Touko's name the next morning, no honorific, showing that they have taken a step closer in intimacy.

Doujima and Akari getting together.

Akari fell in love with the wrong basketball senpai. I know, this is an "enlightened" manga so not everyone can be a lesbian, blah, blah, blah, but that other person asked for a self-indulgent wish, so I'll indulge, damnit!

Ah you mean, the girl Serizawa? I see hehe.

1. Foreshadowing the end of Sayaka's suffering. Funny that outside canon, in the fanfics, some guys started shipping her with Natsuki. Others, her with Miyako (shameless!). They also built Sayaka x Koyomi ship, which only sails in funny Tumblr posts. Hope rests in the LNs maybe it's fine.

I actually thought of Natsuki. I feel like they might be a decent fit, and since they're both friends with Yuu, there's a possible angle for them to meet and interact.

Miyako is definitely off limits. She belongs to Riko-sensei. I can see Sayaka and Koyomi joining a book club together, but I can't see them dating.

1. I wonder how Yuu and Sayaka forged friendship after high school? I'm imagining a bit of the final chapter exploring this, but just a tiny bit. Yep, that Koyomi x Renma-sensei looks delish too.

I feel like they forged their friendship -in- high school? They interact through the Student council, and they've hung out together outside their duties a couple times, plus they've bonded over Touko. I don't think they'd call each other "friends" at this point, but they fit the bill reasonably well already. If Sayaka wants to keep her friendship with Touko, she's going to have to take Yuu as part of the package going forward anyway. The novels just suggest that that relationship has continued to improve over time.

I feel like pointing out that top/bottom and dom/sub are different concepts although they often intersect, i.e. tops are more likely to be dominant and bottoms are more likely to be submissive. But you can also have submissive tops and dominant bottoms. Top/bottom is just referring to who's doing the sexual act upon whom, while dom/sub is about who's controlling the scenario and pace.

My experience with the terms "top" and "bottom" is not consistent with this. Not saying your usage isn't valid, but I felt like it's worth mentioning I've known a lot of people who don't use the terms the way you are here. In my experience, people use "top" and "bottom" to either describe whether they prefer being dominant or submissive, or to talk about the actual physical location of the people in a sexual position. ;p You're actually the first person I've heard describe topping or bottoming as relating to who is performing the sexual act.

I feel like that definition is problematic, as well? I mean, if person A grabs person B by the hair and climbs on her face, person B is "topping" by your definition, because they are the one "performing"?

(I acknowledge this is me being pedantic.)

This doesn't take away from your point that the top/bottom concept is not exclusive to heterosexual relationships. It's a way to describe sexual dynamics in all relationship types regardless of the genders involved.

Yeah, regardless of the specifics of the usages of the terms, we generally agree on that.