My favourite rare Nanoha pairing, bless. There is a whole series of very good (if very old) fanfics featuring this couple over on FF.net, I wager this artist must have read them, lol.

@GrimEater
When the network imposes limits as to how far you can take things, it is not really fair to criticise the creators. And I disagree about the comics, they are essentially an official continuation of the story so implying they are irrelevant is kind of disingenuous.

That said, I do have issues with Korrasami. For one thing, while the show was limited in depicting romance between them, they also failed to depict much of anything else in regards to their relationship. Korra and Asami barely interact with each other for much of the show, even when they are supposed to be close friends.

This is a recurring theme with the series, the personal relationships between characters are so criminally underdeveloped. While the original Avatar had this tight group of friends-and-companions-for-life, Korra's gang is far more loosely connected. Although we are often told how close friends they all are, we are rarely actually shown that, and Korra/Asami is no exception. They could have at least shown an actual close friendship between the two, one which would later bloom into a romance; in that respect literally nothing was stopping them.

People might argue that they had limited screen time, but so did the original Avatar and it succeeded just fine on this score (establishing close relationships within the whole group). Plus, Korra had all the time in the world to waste on that godawful love triangle nonsense, so it is not like the show was that pressed for time.

As for the comics, well... The original Avatar comics were very good, the art was basically lifted straight from the show, writing was competent, they felt in everything like a genuine continuation which seamlessly carried on the minor plotlines of the series. By contrast, both Korra comics are kind of garbage, with Turf Wars (the Korrasami one), being especially egregious. The "plot" is riddled with holes and goes pretty much nowhere by the end, and it is painfully obvious the entire thing is just a paper-thin excuse to showcase the main couple. The art itself is... bad, to put it mildly.

Also, even outside the bad plot the writing is atrocious. Like when Korra introduces Asami to her parents and reveals their relationship. Her parents are instantly accepting and supportive, but they also warn the couple to be careful because other people might be prejudiced in this regard (as Korra intends to let the entire world know about her relationship). Cue Korra attacking her family for being "narrow-minded" and storming off in a fury, apologising to Asami for her parents being "insensitive".

last edited at Jan 30, 2022 3:11PM

Even though I get how that can make for a more interesting character, and it's not like I was expecting or wanted her to actively try and stop the revolution, I just can't bring myself to like her. I don't know why, since I've definitely seen characters in other works that seem to be fixated on only a single person, with little care what happens to the rest *cough cough* Sorawo *cough*, who I've really liked. Maybe it's how this author seems to have gone out of their way to tell us practically nothing at all about this person, other than the fact that she likes Claire and wants to protect her. Like, who is Rei? At least in the manga, we know next to nothing about her and tbh this secrecy seems to only feed my dislike, rather than intrigue me. Also, the way she acts like two completely different people makes her usual behavior seem insincere to me. I'm not saying that it was, I'm just saying that, to me, her happy-go-lucky attitude —when she clearly knew what was coming and had probably been planning what to do all this time— feels fake. I can't believe I came to like the ohoho-ing ojousama more than her....

It might be because there's nothing really compelling about her fixation with Claire, where it mostly feels like she's in love with Claire just because. Maybe Sorawo's a different case.

At one point she did say that Claire "saved" her, but she did not elaborate. I presume she meant something along the lines of "attachment to a fictional character pulled me from my depression". But yeah, probably the root cause of my frustration with her is what the original poster wrote here. We are given next to no insight into her mind, and apart from her fawning over Claire and trying to protect her, we really do not have much to go on here. We know more about the mindsets of almost every other character than we do about the main one.

That said, I also can not help but feel that this is very much intentional and will be used in some sort of a twist later on.

I can understand the frustration, but I kind of liked that Rei's ambitions are more small-scale.

There are so many Isekai stories where the main character becomes the big hero who can change the fate of nations; so I found it kind of interesting that Rei is a more-or-less normal person who's just trying to protect herself and the people she cares about during a period of dramatic political and social upheaval. More of an action survivor, rather than an action hero.

When you put it like that, it is actually kind of neat. I can dig that.

I don't think this is necessarily a spoiler, since it just speaks to motivation, but in the novels at one point Rei does mention that she's afraid of deviating too much from the game's plot, because then she'll lose her ability to predict what's going to happen.

And she's afraid of making things "worse," and then being unable to adapt because she no longer has the right information. So whether you think she should being doing more at this point, she has reasons for why she isn't.

Yeah, this actually goes a long way to explain it. That said, it is a pretty selfish motivation, huh. Since it means her goals really do boil down to "Claire and I". Still, it is not like I have a massive problem with that, it is just kind of mildly frustrating, is all. Though, I wonder how saving Claire will work out then, since it seems that in the original game Claire either died or "fell to the dark side" or something at this point, and Rei just actively prevented it.

"fuck everything, I just want my waifu here"

(and just imagine how much work that would take while also working as a maid and studying)

I mean, keeping up with being a maid and schooling seems like a serious case of skewed priorities when you know bloodshed is about to be unleashed upon the whole country.

She's not trying to be a hero and save everyone or do something stupid like become Nostradamus for these people or worse, ending up being called spy or traitor for knowing too much without exposing the fact that she came from another world and everything here came from a game

Never said she should try to be a hero. I suggested a quiet approach, trying to get the people with actual influence to push for reforms. I have a hard time seeing the princes turning on her if she told them the truth, for example.

joining the anti noble faction would be like saying good bye to Claire, if that happened just for some stupid sense of heroism or obligation to "her people" then I would drop this because it would go against her nature and everything she has done and say thus far

Again, nothing I wrote was about heroism or even choosing sides. She could have done what I outlined and still kept close to Claire, this was not an "either/or" type of scenario I was imagining.

Rei has never lied about her intentions. I think she's playing her cards right FOR Claire and I don't know why would anyone expect any different.

Rei's intentions seem to be very limited is my problem. Her honesty is not under scrutiny here. As for expectations, the series up until now was pretty light-hearted, there was no reason to expect anything other than "I want Claire" from her. But with the stakes being raised so high now, I can not escape feeling how selfish that seems in the grand scheme of things.

I am not saying that everyone should suddenly have a problem with Rei's goals, I explicitly said that I feel frustrated with her, and I explained why. I know that the explanation as to why she has not tried doing anything can simply be "I really do not care about anything other than Claire, at least not enough to do something about it", and if other readers have no issues with it, that is fine. I personally just find it incomprehensible that someone with that level of knowledge of the events and people involved would just sit on the side-lines with no thoughts beyond "must keep Claire safe".

It is this level of detachment from the grand scheme of things with so many lives on the line that leads me to wonder if she actually perceives this world and its people as real, on a subconscious level at least.

Also note that by trying to deescalate the situation or at the very least going after the shadowy people who seem to be enflaming it for their own purposes, she would also act to protect Claire. I imagine Claire would be in considerably less danger if the revolution was avoided or at the very least its violence somewhat mitigated.

You know, I am kind of frustrated with Rei. She knew all of this was to go down. She knows everything since she played this game to death and back in real life, likely finishing it multiple times. Perhaps she could have prevented the violence, or mitigated it in some measure.

It's good you're invested, this becomes a major plot point.

Oof! Looking forward to it!

last edited at Jan 27, 2022 4:17PM

I love how they put the commoners as the villains here, no interest in reading anymore. Don't know why the author decided to put his dog water politics into this, just disgusting.

I don't think you're reading the same manga as everyone else

Perhaps they thought more in the line of "commoners are depicted doing evil and violent stuff", in which case the original poster needs to read on the French Revolution, upon which this setting seems to draw inspiration from. Historically, the masses of commoners absolutely and unequivocally did some pretty horrible acts once their anger boiled over. Having genuine grievances with the system is not a "any atrocity we commit is justified" get-out-of-jail card.

You know, I am kind of frustrated with Rei. She knew all of this was to go down. She knows everything since she played this game to death and back in real life, likely finishing it multiple times. Perhaps she could have prevented the violence, or mitigated it in some measure.

Perhaps let the princes in on everything (it would be easy for her to prove her claims as, again, she knows everything, including like, intimate thoughts of the characters here; just flaunt that knowledge in their faces), try to get them to deescalate things. Or perhaps approach the King. Try to impress the need for reform on the people who have the power to do something, scare them into action or some such.

Especially since this chapter seems to hint at someone manipulating the events to stoke up the unrest and violence (the whole burning incident seems to have been engineered by sabotaging Dede's wand in some way). Could be Lambert, could be the Queen or someone from the Church, hell, could be someone from the commoners' movement itself in order to galvanise people and get the ball rolling. Or it could be someone else entirely. But whoever it is, Rei knows they are behind it and has done precisely nothing to try and thwart their efforts before serious injuries and major violence occurred.

I am not saying it would have worked, but with a prospect as bloody as a revolution looming ahead, she could have at least tried. Yet all she seems interested in is keeping Claire safe. Kind of like "fuck everything, I just want my waifu here".

It is obvious she is not on board with the nobles' perspective. While she is refusing to declare her stances openly, there are more than enough hints showing how she feels. So with her disagreeing with the order of things, could it be that she actually wants the revolution to happen? I kind of have a hard time seeing that. She knows the violence it would unleash, and she does not strike me as someone who condones violence. At the same time she undoubtedly also knows that an armed uprising is not the only way to reform the system, as there are plenty of real world examples of countries abandoning feudalism without going through the Reign of Terror.

Is this perhaps a "I must not interfere with history" kind of deal? I also have a hard time seeing that, she never brought up such concepts, and besides, this reality is based on an otome game which presumably ends without exploring the further history of this setting and how the events in the game impacted it. For all she knows, the continuation of history past the game's time framework will lead to utter misery and chaos. Essentially, she has no idea what the timeline will look like and thus has no concrete reason to protect said timeline.

I am kind of wondering, does she actually see this reality as, well... reality? Is she perhaps subconsciously still treating this as a game, only now she actually gets to romance her preferred character as opposed to those the game used to steer her towards by default? Is that why she seems to have next to no motives except keeping Claire safe?

Talking about the upload request page, would it be possible to make the title not be mandatory?
I understand it for series suggestions, but I don't always know what to use when I'm just suggesting images.

Whenever I suggest images, I usually just put the pairing tag name as the title, ie "Ganyu x Keqing picture", which works fine. If it's an artist's OC's I just put "Original yuri picture". The title doesn't have to be anything specific really, as long as it lets the uploader (or whoever sees the requests) know what you're requesting.

Essentially this. You put in the name of the franchise and the pairing (Genshin Impact, Ganyu/Keqing), it helps the staffer in charge of the image section to easily and more speedily sift through the requests.

Once in a while, I have this weird realization of how big the Dynasty community actually is. It feels like there's just a few dozen people who regularly comment, to the point that unfamiliar user names jump out. But then I look at the list of Most Popular on the landing page, where some have over 20K views, and it makes me realize how many "silent" users there must be on this site. Makes me wonder what the ratio is for lurkers to active community participants.

Well, we can only guess, because the numbers are not really all that straightforward. For example, let us use the January of 2019; there were over 600 000 unique visitors passing through the site that month. We can safely assume that 20% to 50% of that traffic were bots. We can also safely assume that most visitors were actually counted twice, once for the PC connection and once for the mobile one, as the PC/mobile divide in the numbers is roughly equal. But the problem is that some users use only one or the other and there is essentially no way to tell any of this apart.

Basically, it is guesswork, and it depends on what you think how many users utilise both the mobile and PC connection to get here, and how many use only one of these avenues. But it is likely the site gets a few hundred thousand individual people passing through it on a monthly basis.

At that time (2019) there were also around 55 000 registered users (people with Dynasty accounts). The Forum received around 7000 unique visits monthly (same caveats apply, up to 50% of this are likely bots and some users are counted twice).

So the active Forum community really represents only a tiny percentage of the overall mass of people who use this site. Hell, the majority of people who visit the Forum itself are lurkers (as it is plainly evident we do not have active posters counted in 4-digit figures).

Also, these are all 2019 numbers, the site is significantly bigger now than it was back then.

Honestly, I was surprised that some of the nobles even acknowledged that the common class both contributes taxes and that they could be educated. Seems like a pretty tame picture of aristocracy compared to real life; I would've assumed more of them to have Claire's attitude.

Oh, there have been a few nobles who sided with the French Revolution (see: Marquis de Lafayette, Count of Mirabeau), so it's not as unlikely as you think.

Even better example is Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orleans. Cousin of King Louis XVI and the highest ranking aristocrat in France after the members of the royal family, and also one of the wealthiest men in the country at the time of the Revolution.

Spent large sums of money on providing food and shelter for commoners who lost their homes; opened his palace to people of all classes to be admitted in, which the revolutionaries used as a safe haven to discuss political theory and future actions (because the royal police did not have the authority to enter the Duke's palace); was a Jacobin; was in favour of democracy, limiting the powers of the monarchy, and separation of Church and state; was opposed to institutions of feudalism and slavery; represented the Second Estate (the nobility) in the Estates-General but sided with the Third Estate (the commoners) in 1789; was one of the key figures of the early stages of the Revolution; renounced his titles; and in the end as a member of the National Convention even voted for the death of his cousin, the King.

Was arrested after his son (the future King Louis Philippe) betrayed the Revolution and was guillotined soon thereafter, even though there was no evidence he even knew of his son's intentions.

Also, is it just me, or did the tone of this series become somewhat darker with all this social conflict? It has been pretty light-hearted until now, but with the boiling anger presented amongst the commoners and the seriousness with which the issue is treated in the story, I can definitely see this going dark places... then again, this actually reminded me that the title of the game Rei got isekai'd into is literally "Revolution".

...why are y'all even engaging with some obvious drive-by disposable troll acc's provo bullshit in the first place tho?

It has been a slow day, alright?! That said, we spurred Nevri to provide a decent hentai recommendation (also a somewhat sweet story), so it was not all bad.

On a side note, authors and artists seem to always portray nico not succeeding in her dreams. Even in the more lighthearted stories. Poor nico.

Cause the posibilities of succeding as an Idol after your 20s decreases incredibly (not like a singer or musician) and taking in count Nico isnt specially talented compared to other girls... Well i hate to say it but you need to be high to honestly think she could succed

Nico is also the one who fits thematically the best into these failure scenarios. She is the one who is the most obsessed with idols, idol culture, idol career, becoming the top idol, so of course that her failing at it is more impactful. I feel that most of the other girls would just continue with their lives relatively normally if they failed, whereas for Nico it represents the crushing of her biggest dream. That said, I would not mind more doujins with other LL grills failing...

As for this specific doujin, l liked it a lot. Has a grounded, realistic feel to it, and I could easily see it going this way in a more realistic setting. And I am a sucker for unhealthy relationships, so...

Your straight no lesbian's like futa only females straight men and bi women and men like it.

That's just your opinion, peoples are free like any genre. I don't see how being a lesbian clash with liking Futanari.

Just imagine their confusion when they learn that some lesbians like to watch gay porn.

There was even a scanlator on this very site who said that they have a blowjob fetish despite being a lesbian. It is almost like people's inclinations in regards to porn are not an exact 1-to-1 copy of their sexual orientation.

Wait, what??

I guess the most egregious version I can think of is Haruka in Sakura Trick who even after being confessed to just doesn't understand what that means. That's the extreme, but there are a fair number of characters who literally do not seem to grasp the concept of love, rather than just not feeling it

Interestingly, but Sakura Trick is actually the only one that I know of in this regard. And it is not just Haruka, Yuu as well has no clue whatsoever. Two braindead bricks, literally ignorant that such a thing as dating exists. The only series in existence filled with two grills frenching each other from the get-go, yet by the end it turns out they are not considering their relationship to be anything other than friendship because they literally do not know other options exist. Shredded my suspension of disbelief in seconds, and caused me to viscerally hate the entire series. But that is also the only such instance that I know of, all the other stuff of similar nature fits more into what Blastaar described.

anal rape and not pooping could be related if it's too harsh,no?

Being too harsh is not necessary to cause this. Anal sex, even when relatively gentle, can still lead to tissue damage which results in long-term constipation. But, in some cases, it can also have the opposite effect and lead to incontinence.

last edited at Dec 9, 2021 6:18PM

We do seem to agree that in this series the author seems to want us to admire a character who acts like a piece of shit,

No, I don't go that far. The writer seems to want to lead the audience to sympathy. Whether she'll want us to admire that character is unclear to me.

and that’s bad writing, however.

Indeed, wanting us to admire such a character would be bad writing, because prescribing with a broken moral compass is bad writing. And, for the same reason, wanting us to sympathize with a character who behaves as she does is bad writing. And wanting to normalize some of the behavior in the other series was bad writing.

It is not bad writing because the author wants us to sympathise with Liz, it is bad writing because the author has not given us sufficient nor satisfactory reasons for why Liz acts as a piece of shit. The issue is not how she behaves, the issue is that we are given only a rudimentary "dumped in high school" backstory to handwave (as opposed to actually explaining it) her awfulness. There is nothing to sympathise with here, and yet the author seems to be going for it anyway. That is bad writing. It is not about a moral compass, it is about a poorly done characterisation where a character randomly behaves as a borderline sociopath with no explanation beyond "her last girlfriend dumped her".

Based on what I remember of his previous posts, I believe Blastaar was going for that with "acts like a piece of shit", rather than just stopping at the literal confines of that statement (he will correct me if I am wrong).

The "normalisation" argument I will not even touch upon, as Blastaar already did so and did so well.

Nearly any reader will accept a story in which what he or she regards as goodness does not triumph, and instead what the reader regards as evil is successful, if the reader is still somehow led to believe that a perverse morality is not being advanced. (In the simplest such cases, the message is that goodness faces a very great challenge.)

I will, however, ask for specific examples and details as to how exactly are either Octave or Liberty "normalising" or "advancing" a "perverse morality". You seem to have great in-depth knowledge about the personal driving forces of individual writers and what they are trying to accomplish with their works, up to and including labelling a carefree author who is clearly just having fun as either being a victim of abuse or abuser herself, because clearly only such people would write a story about infidelity.

So I want actual scenes and panels, linked here, that clearly show how these series are normalising and advancing morally dubious behaviour.

I will not address your tone, as that is for the staff to handle. About your actual points, though.

Most people do relatively well in their debut work. I'm not referring to attempted debuts, but to work that finds a publisher.

Implying only "quality" works get published. Because that was the crux of your whole argument up until this post, the lack of quality of writing here, and why such a work is not getting better ("lack of competence or lack of incentive to do better"). Let us forget for a moment that cancellations and axing would not be a thing if every work that got published was automatically a "quality" work (and let us also forget that it is popularity that actually dictates this, not quality), but the very fact this series was published undermines your entire point. Garbage debuts get published all the time, and they get axed all the time, so why would you treat "finding a publisher" as an actual argument is somewhat baffling.

Experience is neither necessary nor sufficient to explain ability, so lack of ability cannot be explained by lack of experience.

Writing is in part both a gift and a product of experience, and how much the two are relevant to a particular writer varies greatly. An "able" writer without any experience would still produce mostly garbage, and an ungifted writer with lots of experience can produce good results. Both the language skills and the adeptness at using the writing tropes come largely from experience, arguing that they are not connected is just nonsensical.

Publishers can find sufficiently able writers without debuting bad writers who don't illustrate.

So why have they done so here? I mean, I know why, even you know why, so the better question is, what is the point of this argument?

The commercial publication of writing exhibiting lack of quality cannot be explained in terms of the lack of experience of the writer.

Now, this is something you did not argue before. Your whole point was the lack of quality and whether or not it was caused by a "lack of competence" or a "lack of incentive to do better". At no point prior did you argue about the commercial aspect. "Why is this so bad and why is it not getting better" (what you argued) is not the same as "why is this being published despite being bad" (what you brought up out of nowhere here).

Putting that aside, yes, a work with subpar writing being published can not be explained in terms of the lack of experience of the writer. It can, however, be explained by something I wrote in my response to Altair.

Soap opera sells. Like, when you think about it, most soap opera features contrived plots, badly done and inconsistent characterisations, and plenty of morally reprehensible characters, so this fits perfectly. And as I said, this stuff sells well.

To make things really funny, you brought this up yourself, but failed to grasp the implications.

I'm reminded... of some of what I've heard and read about willful inconsistency in soap operas.

Apparently, either you have not read enough, or alternatively, you never saw a single soap opera in your life. Put it bluntly, garbage sells, and almost no genre is as full of garbage as soap opera. It sells exceedingly well, actually. The commercial success was never surprising here, nor was it even a point of argument in the previous discussion, including your own posts in this thread. And this will now be a recurring theme in the rest of your comment.

You linked the writing problems to either a lack of competence or a lack of incentive in terms of readers demanding better storytelling.

To keep doing this, she needs a publisher.

You are confusing writing quality with popularity. Yes, she needs a publisher. If her not-exactly-stellar writing is popular, why in the world would she not get a publisher?

Lack of competence is certainly a factor, it can not not be with someone who is not a professional writer and is basically doing this for the first time.

Not unless a publisher publishes it. And a publisher won't keep publishing it if the number of people buying the contents discernibly declines.

Again, what we discussed before your baffling doubling down is the quality of writing. Lack of competence, largely stemming from a lack of experience, is a factor. I already covered how your argument of experience somehow being irrelevant in this case is nonsensical. As for the publishing aspect, again, you seem oblivious to the fact that utter garbage can and does sell exceptionally well, and is published all the time. Why is the publishing aspect even being brought up here?

But the lack of incentive, in the way you presented it, is simply not a factor at all, in my opinion.

Your opinion absurdly imagines commercial publication as something else.

Again, we have been debating the author's writing and her motivations behind it. I know very well what "commercial publication" is and how it operates. What I am saying here is that commercial publication in all likelihood does not matter to this particular writer.

I do not think she would radically alter her course if some of the readers did rebel.

She'd have no choice but radical change of some sort. She'd have to abandon the work, or write better, or fund its publication herself. With money or sweet-talk, she'd have to persuade Momono Moto to keep drawing it, or find another artist, or draw it herself.

Read the bolded part. She is not a professional writer, she has a solid career as a voice actress that does not involve writing at all, this is basically a vanity project for her. I stand by what I said, I do not see her compromising on what she wants to do with this series because of reader rebellion or publication issues. Which is, again, why the "commercial publication" is not any kind of argument here, why it is irrelevant, and why your sudden need to hang every single argument you have onto it is, well, baffling.

So, given that her publisher puts-up with it because, for some reason, the readers put up with it, she doesn't have an incentive to do better. Get that all in your head at once.

Yes, the publisher "puts up with it" because the readers "put up with it". I will even be magnanimous and once again reveal to you why the readers "put up with it". Soap opera garbage sells well.

Your next point about the incentive is the same one I already addressed. She indeed probably lacks this particular incentive, however, my point was not that she does not lack it, she obviously does, my point was that she lacks it for reasons different than what you were going for. You are arguing she lacks the incentive because the publisher "puts up with her", I am arguing she lacks it because it is simply not a factor for her at all, whatever the publisher does or does not put up with. She is doing this for fun and apparently, this is what fun looks like for her.

Of course, it is not really surprising you glossed over this, since your interpretation of the writer's motivations was literally as follows:

I think that people who write stuff of this sort are themselves either unfaithful people trying further to normalize infidelity, or victims of infidelity trying to rationalize their continued attachments to their abusers.

You know, nobody's mentioned it the whole time because it's so obvious . . . but it's really rather interesting and quite bizarre the way this mangaka has reimagined angels with the little wings coming out of their frigging heads plus the main wings down around waist level sticking out the sides instead of the traditional out-the-back-around-shoulder-level gig.

It's more like the renaissance artists reimagined angels into the traditional template you described. There are definitely angels in fiction out there that more harken back to their original, bizarre roots.

Three pairs of wings in particular was considered standard for the highest orders of angels in Christianity, like the Seraphim and the Cherubim, and you will even find medieval depictions where the top pair of wings does indeed originate on their heads, while the lowest pair comes out roughly from their waists, and that is just counting the depictions where they are given a humanoid appearance to begin with (the further into the past you go, the descriptions read more and more like eldritch abominations with absolutely nothing human in their appearance). So this is not so much "reimagining" angels as it is playing with some of their original, older depictions.

last edited at Nov 27, 2021 7:09PM

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/going_off_course
This one as well, can not believe I forgot about it. And it is LL too, lmao! Seriously, what is up with that?? Not that I am complaining.

Every people react differently to what happens to them. It's not the objective circumstances that determine whether an event is traumatic, but the subjective, emotional experience of that event.

I don't know how many times this needs to be repeated--whether something could conceivably happen in real life is totally irrelevant to its credibility as a storytelling trope.

It's the job of the author to sell the audience on the idea that this event in the past is a plausible explanation for a specific character's behavior in the narrative present--the author has to make that "subjective, emotional" experience concrete in the pages of the text. That's what good writing is.

It's not up to the audience to explain away poor character motivations by handwaving at theoretical real-life possibilities.

Exactly. Mundane things are commonplace, ordinary, because they happen all the time and to a lot of people, and most people have similar reactions. High school breakups are one of those things, and the vast majority of people do not end up emotionally scarred for life because of them.

So if you are going to have a high school breakup be the linchpin of your characterisation, specifically why the character in question is a borderline sociopath, then you better have some rather compelling in-depth explanation in the story for why this affected them so deeply. We are simply not given that here.

last edited at Nov 27, 2021 4:35PM

I don't think there's any amount of trauma that makes Liz's behavior towards Maki justified. I find it just as compelling and believable that a mundane event had such a strong effect on Liz.

That is exactly the reason why I do not consider it compelling, though. Mundane events are mundane for a reason, I just can not comprehend why someone would be this traumatised without basically being somewhat unhinged to begin with.

I don't think Maki's apology is framed as a "correct" response, either. Her character arc is learning to value herself. She's not at fault for what's happened to her, but she needs to learn to assert her worth and boundaries.

The problem with Maki is that we hardly ever see her learning this lesson. Literally the only scene that comes to mind was when she tried to slap Liz's ex, and even that was kind of... off... like, you are supposed to slap your own cheating girlfriend, not whomever happens to be with them. I agree that this is a lesson she needs to learn (or rather, that it would be beneficial for her to learn it), but the problem is, we are not exactly shown her making any progress on that front.

Maki doesn't have any obligation to forgive Liz or even hear her out. A good ending to the story could be Maki choosing to cut Liz out of her life completely.

I just don't think that's the only satisfying ending to their story. Maki forgiving Liz on the grounds that Liz needs to do better and fix her shit wouldn't compromise either character arc in my opinion.

Now, whether or not that could be executed in a satisfying way is going to at least partially be down to taste. I don't think it's too late to show them doing the work and earning a happy ending together, but that would require breaking out of the soap opera vibe we've got going right now.

Agree, it is basically down to the execution on the part of the author, how well can they pull it off. It is just that with the overall writing quality, and specifically when it comes to characterisations, I am not exactly expecting the most compelling scenario here if they opt for a happy ending.

So yeah, if you wouldn't forgive Liz in that situation, that's that's 100% justified. But I don't think it's a weaker choice for Maki to forgive her.

If Maki grows as a character, definitely, she could forgive her and still have it presented as a stronger option. But if she stays the same doormat as before, it is definitely a weaker choice.

last edited at Nov 27, 2021 3:38PM

I don't remember the earlier chapters or her name, but this is the same girl Maki was with when Liz and her lover got busted, not a new character. The hug looks nice, but imho it's just a lazy cliffhanger so we can get some satisfaction until the .... hits the fan in the next chapter.

Actually, there's one cliche we haven't considered: Maki's ex is back! (The one who dumped her, came begging back, then ghosted her.)

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/liberty_ch16#4

We only see her in a chibi version, but the hair color, length, and bow are all there.

You actually do see her in normal mode as well, and the actual scenario is slightly worse than what you presented. She did not dump Maki at first, Maki caught her cheating, that is why the ex came running crying and Maki took her back. Then afterwards that same cheating grillfriend dumped Maki, lmao!

Truly I don't understand people's hate for this series. Liz needs an arc!

The author started her with unprocessed baggage that's festered into a driving bitterness that leads to her hitting rock bottom by her own actions. To me it's more meaningful that she actually did a cruel, unjustified thing because of the scars of her previous relationship.

It seems that some people have designated her a "bad person" who doesn't deserve redemption or happiness out of some sense of punitive justice. I think she's a product of her environment and her own anxiety about being vulnerable. This doesn't justify her behavior, but it means that she's capable of being better.

I want to see her get better by realizing that not everyone she opens up to is going to hurt or abandon her. She can still fuck up and deserve happiness! She has to learn to do better by being hurt and seeing the consequences of her actions hurting others.

The problem with this is that the deep trauma she endured which caused her to behave as a borderline psychopath is being dumped in high school. I am not saying that such an experience is a pleasant one, or that it leaves no emotional scars, but I am saying that the levels to which she is traumatised are way, waaay too high for such an affair.

Just to illustrate my point, let us return to one of the earliest WHAT THE FUCK moments, the earrings. Maki gifts Liz some nice earrings. Liz suffers a mental breakdown, because it is a deep trauma (let me reiterate, all of this stems from being dumped by her high school girlfriend). Maki proceeds to apologise (for doing nothing wrong, she had no way of knowing that particular shape of earrings had any sort of traumatic meaning for Liz). Liz responds to the apology by slapping her, because that is what a mentally stable person does under such circumstances. And Maki's first thought afterwards is whether or not Liz is alright, because of course a chronic doormat like her would think that.

Liz is being a "victim" of a failed high school romance, for which she proceeds to vent in massively disproportionate ways on people who did her nothing wrong and showed her only kindness and love. She is not exactly the shining example of a flawed but sympathetic character that makes you root for her happiness.

It is slapped together because she is an inexperienced writer, this being literally her debut.

While she may get better with experience, other writers do well in their debut work. The question of talent versus incentive remains.

Not everyone does well in their debut works, so it is hardly an actual argument. Plus...

Keeping an indie publisher afloat during the pandemic is an impressive debut no matter how you slice it.

Oh, that was actually not what I was driving at with "not everyone does well in their debut works", lol. I was talking exclusively about the quality of writing, which, let us face it, is quite far from stellar.

It might be more interesting to speculate why the hell it manages to do it's job so well. Here's to another 5 years of it!!

Soap opera sells. Like, when you think about it, most soap opera features contrived plots, badly done and inconsistent characterisations, and plenty of morally reprehensible characters, so this fits perfectly. And as I said, this stuff sells well.

I compared Tomoko with Kodama previously, but it is my impression that in the realm of soap opera authors like Kodama are actually the exception, who put actual nuance and reasoning behind their characterisations.

So I am not in the least bit surprised this is performing nicely. Hell, I actually quite like it myself (no surprise, as fan of Kodama it stands to reason I would like Kodama-lite as well). Literally my only gripe with it was the massive contrast between the first several chapters and the rest of the story. Even the bad writing is not something that bothers me, it genuinely makes me laugh at this point and that is a plus in my book.