Ah, one of the three best Maki pairings. Gotta love it.

The other two are HonoMaki and MakiPana.

I know you're not a fan of tsun-tsun pairings, but I do have a soft spot for NicoMaki since that was my first exposure to LL shipping.

Well, yes. I do agree. I don't think the author did it intentionally. At worst, I think the author may have been a bit careless. And I certainly have written a frankly excessive amount about this. But I didn't get the creepy feeling by analysing it, I got the creepy feeling by reading it for the first time with no expectations and reacting to it naturally. The analysing came afterwards, when I wanted to know exactly what I found off-putting about it

And that's fine. I'm certainly not telling you that you're wrong, nor that your analysis is invalid. Death of the author means that there are no privileged interpretations. Nobody (not even the author) gets to say "THIS is what this work means, and all other interpretations are wrong." (Most days I'm a firm believer in the death of the author. There are, however, days when I harbor a black suspicion that it's just something literature professors came up with because they were tired of having their analyses challenged with "Well the AUTHOR OF THE WORK says that she meant...")

My point was simply that this work probably doesn't benefit from too much thought. Which is hard to avoid if you're the kind of person (like me!) who likes to think about stuff. So I get it. Really, I do. (Seriously. Ever seen the kiddie show "Meteor and the Mighty Monster Trucks". There are clearly cars in the world of the Mighty Monster Trucks, because every episode features the monster trucks driving over some. Are they sentient like the monster trucks are? Is their world one of never-ending horror? Are they hunted down by roving bands of monster trucks?)

and whether it really was just an irrational fear of yuri dudes, which is apparently an awful scourge of yuri comments sections everywhere. So even if I'm told not to think about it so much, that only gets me as far as being unable to identify why I felt uncomfortable, if I should expect more of whatever it is from the story in the future, or if the problem is actually me and some weird hangup that I need to get over by myself.

Look, for what it's worth, my comments to you specifically have been essayed in a congenial and collegial tone. That was how I intended it, at any rate. If they've caused you distress (and it seems that maybe they have), my apologies. You seem like a sharp cookie, and I enjoy this kind of discussion, as evidenced by my ability to ramble on and on about it. (You should see the three paragraphs I deleted!)

Also a good illustration of semiotics/death of the author. My intent don't mean beans. Communication is mediated. You bring your own personality and experiences to the table when you interpret a given work. Even a work like a message forum post.

As Sigmund Freud (allegedly) said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

And sometimes a vampire has been a metaphor for sexual politics ever since it was first put to paper and this actual manga used its second chapter to explicitly connect its own form of vampirism to sexual desire and pleasure, as if it was a central theme of the manga. But I guess that's looking at it too deep.

Sure, vampires have been used as a rape metaphor since God wore a serafuku. Though these days I think that has been thoroughly surpassed by the "Vampires as superheroes with an unusual diet" approach.

I guess my question is: Would the vampire in this manga still be a rape metaphor if it were female?

And it ain't the alien who's the opportunistic predator here, amirite?

Then they had lots of [REDACTED]

You got it wrong! They actually had lots of messy [omitted]

I'm glad we cleared that up.

Someone had to turn Irie into a bloodsucking fiend of the night. If it'd been a girl vampire, it would've complicated the yuri romantic picture. Hence: Comic Relief Dude Vampire.

I'm... Not sure that follows?

Is it plausible? That's the real question you should be asking. We're not doing a mathematical proof here. This is Kremlinology. We're second-guessing an author's intentions based on indirect info.

I'm mainly confused about why the author made all these deliberate, intentional, and entirely optional decisions about the story and the very first thing that happened in it, if they were just going to say "Actually, forget about that, it's not important at all, let's get to the lesbian vampire schoolgirl thirsting after her buddies already".

I think it's very, very likely that you are putting waaaaaaaaaaaay more thought into this than the author did. You are overanalyzing something that was never meant to be analyzed, much less overanalyzed.

And don't get me wrong: That's great fun. I do it myself. I can entertain myself for hours asking questions like "In the Ice Age movies, who does Diego eat?" He's a feline, so he's an obligate carnivore, which means he must eat meat to survive. And yet all the animals are sentient and sapient. So who does he eat? What are the implications for Sid and Manny? Surely they know that he's off eating some sentient creature whenever he gets hungry. Does that make them willing accomplices to his acts of murder? Are they turning a blind eye simply because they like him?

But I recognize that I'm pondering ramifications that were never meant to be pondered. It is almost a 100% certainty that Diego the Sabre-toothed Tiger was put in as a character because someone thought it would be cool to have a sabre-toothed tiger as a character, and for absolutely no other reason.

So while it's fun and enjoyable for me to ponder these things, I also know that I'm spinning my wheels for no reason other than my own amusement. I think you're probably doing the same thing with your analysis of Vampire Slacker Dude. He seems to exist as (A) a catalyst for the main plot; and (B) a source of cheap comedy. I would be very surprised indeed to discover that the author put much more thought than that into him.

The alternative is that the author did indeed consider all of the things you're considering, and thought about all the ramifications you're thinking about, and put in the Vampire Slacker Dude anyways. Which, I think you'll agree, would imply some mildly ugly things about the author. Since I have no reason to believe the author is guilty of those ugly things, I think Occam's Razor suggests that the author is just going for cheap laughs.

As Sigmund Freud once (allegedly) said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

last edited at Feb 14, 2017 9:43AM

Another unrelated question:

Let us say PURELY HYPOTHETICALLY YOU UNDERSTAND that I wanted to recommend an upload or two (or...um...23?) to Dynasty Scans. Is there a format that's more useful to whoever has to look it over and decide whether to accept it?

The few times I've suggested an upload, I've just uploaded it into an Imgur picture album. But I was wondering if maybe uploading it to the web in a zip file would be better.

This is like Reverse Wingfic.

Hmm. Not sure if Gay Boats tag is warranted in this case.

Maybe she was really really REALLY determined to wait for the right one.

Can someone explain why so many of the character bios in these manga mention the character's blood type? I assume there's some cultural significance, but I dunno what it is.

I've read Vol. 1-3 of Futaribeya and the yuri level is so low there that you can basically say it's your average CGDCT subtext manga with some fanservice here and there.

i think you can tell from reading like 1-2 chapters that its just subtext and an average CGDCT.

EXPN CGDCT?

Aside from how unutterably hot this is, possibly the hottest sex in any of Rukuroichi's pieces...

I've seen a lot of sex portrayed in mangas, both hentai and yuri. Rukuroichi conveys the female orgasm better than pretty much any other mangaka I've read so far. There's that one scene in Keep Your Heart Closed where the MC asks her cousin/lover if she wants to have another orgasm. And when she does, the art completely conveys the intensity and the desperation of her desire.

You want to cry, I am crying, and smiling, and laughing, and I have the hiccups, and I just sneezed... weird combination.

@Kurosaki has experienced a loss of cabin pressure.

this isnt a case of tsundere... This is case of a sadist and a masochist.

Nah. This ain't BDSM. Abuse tag very appropriate here. Dark-haired girl is just straight-up malicious, and light-haired girl is a co-dependent doormat. She's not enjoying the abuse, she's just putting up with it.

Depends on the restaurant and the person. I never got tired of Italian food when I worked at an Italian restaurant, for example. I could eat that every day. On the other hand, the southern food restaurant I worked at got old real fast. I can only eat so much chicken fried steak.

I'm kinda glad it was so short, because if it'd continued, it woulda been the usual rivers of bodily fluids and "FEEL ME MORE!" and "DON'T LICK THERE IT'S DIRTY!" and yadda yadda yadda. As it was, it set a specific tone pretty much perfectly and then smartly decided not to ruin it.

I mean, I've read some comments saying that, in this setting, a vampire's blood preference is linked to their sexual preference, and Slacker Vampire Mentor Dude outright says drinking blood feels like sexual pleasure for both parties... Sure, that means Irie is confirmed super gay, and that's great, that's what we're all here for, but it also means that Slacker Vampire targeted her because he was attracted to her, and basically got off on drinking her blood. So as much as I sympathise with people who are tired of folks whining whenever there's a trace of dudes in their yuri, I kinda feel like discomfort about Slacker Vampire is a little more warranted in this case?

I think that Slacker Vampire Guy has to be a guy for the simple reason that the story is about Irie's relationship with Nana (and maybe her other classmates). If Slacker Vampire Guy was, instead, Slacker Vampire Girl, then we'd be wondering why Irie wasn't hooking up with Slacker Vampire Girl. By making him a guy in a yuri manga, the author is effectively removing him from the field of play, freeing up Irie to be gay as shit.

I get that we're supposed to view him as harmless, and that the author is trying to encourage us to think of him as harmless by having Irie disregard him completely, but literally the first thing he did in the story was establish himself as not harmless at all? Like, if he really was harmless, then there wouldn't even be a story in the first place.

Someone had to turn Irie into a bloodsucking fiend of the night. If it'd been a girl vampire, it would've complicated the yuri romantic picture. Hence: Comic Relief Dude Vampire.

I am completely unfamiliar with this series aside from reading a couple of other doujins here on Dynasty. Through those doujins, I gleaned that Aikatsu! was related to Idols in some fashion, similar to Idolm@ster.

Therefore I was very confused when these two started talking about Yurika being a 600-year-old vampire... (A quick trip to Wikipedia has since cleared up the matter.)

I gotta say the "OMG THERE'S A HINT OF TESTOSTERONE IN MY PURE ESTROGEN FANTASY!" complaints are kind of odd. It's like being back in elementary school and hearing the kids freak out about cooties.

I'd be fascinated to see how the people making those complaints break down in terms of age, sexual experience, and the presence or absence of a Y chromosome. I have my suspicions about how that particular set of data would be skewed, but I could be wrong.

So, when do you guys think Nana will turn into a vampire? Round the middle of the series or at the end? (remember, it's a CHANCE of happening, and obviously getting bitten a lot would massively increase that chance)

My prediction is that, via some comedic twist of fate, Yuu will defy the statistics and turn all of her classmates into vampires.

Lol that lust cloud scene was hilarious.

</Salute>

Okay, so why are these pairings tagged with Hisa x Mihoko when Mihoko calls Hisa "Ueno"? Took me forever to make sense of this pairing because of that.

Because those are the characters' names.

Don't try to confuse me with your "facts" and your "logic"!

Okay, so why are these pairings tagged with Hisa x Mihoko when Mihoko calls Hisa "Ueno"? Took me forever to make sense of this pairing because of that.

And as long as we're on the subject, why does she call her "Ueno"?

All that said, this was a very sweet, fluffy doujin and you should totally read it. /nod

I think Moderate amounts of sex is over-selling it a bit.

Maybe Tiny amounts of sex?

Implied Oral on Page 22

Ah, reminds me of my ex-wife, who described herself as "bisexual from the waist up". (She liked boobs but had no interest in anything "south of the border".) We would often ogle women together.

Good times.