Bae will get back with Irys soon enough.
For now Mumei enjoys.

Ayu is just an odd character. With how her parents were, wouldn't it make her think there's something wrong with her? Wouldn't there be some kind of her forcing herself to "be normal"? Was there some kind of community she was part of that would let her know it was okay? It felt like she just googled stuff and decided upon the first search.

She only came out to her parents after she already cemented her sexual identity. This is not weird or vague at all. She quite clearly explained that she figured out she was a lesbian, researched it and pretended to be straight for 3 years. There absolutely was a "force herself to be normal" phase, but not in the sense that she denied her sexuality to herself, just that she hid it.
I believe a lot of people have been influenced by the trap of manga logic too long. When you figure out your sexuality and are honest with yourself it doesnt always end up with self-denial. The trope of denying that the MC is gay or thinking she is abnormal and has to fix that is not accurate to all LGBT people in reality, even in Japan. Yes, to be seen as an outcast and trying to avoid that is expected, but in this world where you have access to the internet and all the information you need, it is easy to realize that being "abnormal" is not what it seems.

Her parents reacted violently and forced her to see a therapist, but those actions would only cause stronger defiance in someone as determined as Ayu, When she punched the gibbering white knight you should have realized she is not the type to take the easy solution. If she feels attacked, she will fight back. So at the point where her parents actually knew and tried to brainwash her, she was already too resilient to be detered.

She was also just betrayed by her entire environment and yet it doesn't seem like she cares that much. No trust issues, no nothing. Sure, there's that one bit where she's afraid of admitting to sensei about her gayness but... It's just as if nothing happened.

I don't believe this criticism makes much sense at this point. She was betrayed and what were her actions?
1. She punched a guy
2. She resisted her parents' brainwashing
3. She ran away from home when she realized it wouldnt get better
4. She had a complete make-over, went to Tokyo and wants to seek out other lesbians

Those are all pretty strong reactions for allegedly not caring. Trust issues should be relegated to sensible moments. She trusts her aunt, because her aunt was the only positive family influence she had. She doesn't trust the author she works for completely, so she won't come out to her.

At several points in chapter 2-4 has Ayu shown a deeper melancholy and that this fresh start is what she had always hoped for to remedy her pain. She may have baggage, but that is exactly why she is here. She naively thought going to Tokyo would fix her issues and her positive experiences with the author only reinforce that sentiment. Things may go wrong later, but for now she is in a bubble of healing that only could be threatened to burst if she did something overly rash, like coming out.

Alright, might just as well replay it, because what else am I gonna do?

Well, if you are dead set on that I would not stop you either, but if you are in need of new content to read this is the right thread for you~
If you are interested in reading a yuri related VN that is on the list or if you have any specifications for what you would like to read I can assist. There must be something you haven't tried yet, right?

I have serious issues with this being treated as a canon companion series for several reasons. The way it is structured right now, these chapters should be released alongside the main series at their appropiate points. This is stuff that should not be missed.

It is acceptable that backstory is delivered in such a "side-story" format I suppose, as for example the teacher's situation with her old crush was more or less alluded to in the main story. This is thus just an extension of that (a really impactful one though that I think should not be left out from the "main plot").

But there are several actual confession scenes and relationship jump off points in this side-story series. This is stuff that you cannot just delegate to an "optional" side manga. The editor and mangaka for example have constant build-up to their relationship in the main series and yet their actual confession and start of the relationship are being told here? Assuming that the untranslated volumes of the main series actually do address these things as well, can we just view these as extensions of those canon scenes? I think that would be a disservice to the main series.

Additionally due to just having binged the main series again, I can see real contradictions and plot holes in these chapters. In the main series Heke and Shinohara were both aware of each other's identities and Heke in particular already found out about Shinohara's romantic feelings for her and that Shinohara knew her identity as well. Yet these side-story chapters portrayed it differently. It is portrayed as if Heke didnt know Shinohara's feelings or that Shinohara knew her identity, but then they went on an offline date where they revealed their identities. Yet in the main series Heke found these things out and hides it from Shinohara, which makes no sense if they had an offline date already.

last edited at Feb 4, 2022 8:48AM

Hmm, I've been interested in playing Aoishiro for a while, but heard it is a bit bloated. I wonder if there is anybody who played it before and can recommend it to me? The sheer amount of routes and bad endings seems daunting, but also intriguing.

Wouldn't say it's bloated in terms of its length, but some of the routes and endings are...just okay. I had played it 12 years ago, so I don't remember much beyond the fact that the main route/true ending felt satisfying to me (but don't expect much in terms of yuri).
Otherwise, it's a good VN with really high production values, nicely written cast and engaging mystery. As a nice bonus, one of the main characters is voiced by Yuna Yatsushiro, uh, pardon, our queen and savior Kei Mizusawa.

It doesn't deliver on the Yuri? I knew it was a plot focused VN, but with all the different heroines I thought romance would still play a major role. It would be a shame if such a high production game lacked in the most important (haha) aspect, but sometimes a good story makes up for a lacking romance.

If it is not overly bloated then I may check it out soon. Thank you for the recommendation.

G-san has always been a consistent wingman across the ages. Where there are easily scared girls there must be a G-san who drives them into the arms of their crushes. Thank you for your service G-san!

nothing to do with anime, i would literally die if one crawled on me

i've only directly touched one once in my life, when i accidentally stepped on a dead one, and it's still a traumatic memory many years later

they aren't "scary", they're disgusting. by far the most repulsive, filthy, vile things nature has to offer. just looking at them makes my eyes feel violated. what they lack in physical danger they make up tenfold with psychological damage

Do not look up botflies if you wish to keep your sanity.

last edited at Feb 2, 2022 10:36AM

You might say Yuu finally can, in fact, reach the stars.

Exceptionally canon. Hopefully their story will eventually move forward to the point where they get back together.

"We definitely wont meet again, right?"
Of course, in this incredibly niche industry, within the same area, with a successful photo shoot that got the director happy, I am sure the chances of another collab are very slim. A mere 89%!

As I said in the previous chapter, I fully expected Ai-san to be the type who will not hide it. Her conscience is just too great. When the chapter nearly swerved into them taking the easy "friendship disguise" route I was admittedly very disappointed.

That being said, a very unfortunate way to go about it. If she had kept her cool and had phrased it more agreeably the impression would have been better. In the end the assumption of them just being friends was on the parent's side, so a simple clarification would have been the way to go. But framing it as a deception is a downright horrible choice. The over-the-top dogeza (twice over!) also makes her seem more unstable.

Ultimately keeping up a lie would not have been good for these two, so this had to happen in my opinion. Misumi slipped up first exactly because her feelings are that strong and Ai-san wants to be a responsible partner and a role-model. Whatever the parents may think or say, these two will be better off creating a relationship based on truth.

I do, however, want to point out that despite being uneasy about it, Misumi's father did seem to expect a boyfriend already. This means while he would obviously judge the person, he was not fully opposed to a relationship (or otherwise this meeting wouldnt have happened and he would have just told Misumi to break it off). The main factors that will decide how they react now are the age gap and the gender obviously. Let's see what kind of author we are dealing with here.

last edited at Jan 30, 2022 5:36AM

Now this is a happy ending massage.

The old moniker "Spin to win" seems to have a very different meaning in this context.

A much more interesting pairing than the Kanji-is-not-gay cop-out.

Context is key.

Inseperable indeed. These two have only grown more affectionate with time.

Holy fuck, Licentious Lantern. My first impression of you was way more positive than what you just displayed. There's just so much wrong in what you said, everything you wrote oozes arrogance and amount of unwillingness to listen is just staggering, that I honestly don't even want to reply to you and I honestly don't really feel like responding to everything, so I'll just focus on few most crucial parts.

First of all, you said you don't use subjective definitions and are willing to use one commonly accepted if you'll be provided with one. Well, actual trans person gave you it, which is "person who doesn't identify with their assigned gender at birth" as opposite cis which is "person who identify with their assigned gender at birth", which then you proceed to insultingly call subjective and irrelevant. Then when the same trans person told you that nowadays all you really need to be consider trans is just identifying as trans (how far you want to transition and what being trans entails is entirely up to you) you again condescendingly tell them they're wrong and you know what you're talking about better than them. And lastly trans person and trans people is a very common, pretty much officially accepted way at this point to refer to people identifying as transgender, so I really have no idea which rock you lived under to not know it and try to use outdated terms, despite supposedly doing enough "research" on the topic.

Seriously, you have no idea how much you fucked up. People get permabanned for just 1 post of what you now wrote few walls of text. Dynasty doesn't tolerate transphobes and whatever intentionally or not, you ended up writing some very transphobic sounding stuff, so you should pray you'll only get away with slap on the wrist.

Sorry if I came off as arrogant. I was trying to be objective. My language may come off as stiff or overly certain due to that, I even tried to keep it a bit more jovial to counter-balance that.
But at every turn I conceded to my conversation partners, did I not? I compared the claims on the other side to what I know and and what I have learned. There was no malicious intent and no wish to lecture anyone, so much as to contextualize them. I have talked to several trans people before on the same topics. The presence of gender dysphoria was never even in question with them and the definitions and explanations I read also always tend to go in that direction.

I called something subjective because it doesn't follow the definitions I was given and because the person themselves said that this is a matter that is not agreed upon by everyone. I never called it irrelevant. Subjective feelings are not irrelevant. A consensus is just that... a compromise. It cannot fully represent everyone accurately sadly.

I said I use trans person myself at times, because I am aware it is used (the one I never heard used is transness). I just said that I find it awkward as an expression... is that an issue? Do you not find your reaction unduly aggressive here as well?

If this is considered transphobic I am rather... sad. Discourse about topics being seen in such a binary fashion is always harsh. Compared to most people I am sure that I am one of the more open minded. I have in no way anything against trans people. I support them where I can. I do not use slurs, I do not tell them they are wrong about how they feel. I don't oppose or suppress, I do not show disgust. Of course I am not perfect, I already conceded on several points and said I would keep them in mind. If the mods consider me transphobic for my comments then I want people to really consider what the word means and whether you really facilitate acceptance and understanding this way. It is very hard to find common ground if we are not allowed to discuss misconceptions.

At worst I am misinformed, not malicious. And to err is to be human.
I am sorry for letting this conversation go so far off-topic.

last edited at Jan 27, 2022 4:15AM

Transness or transidentity are more commonly used as umbrella terms nowadays.

No trans person I ever talked to refered to it as "transness" yet, so I was not aware. But I'll keep it in mind.

last edited at Jan 27, 2022 3:50AM

My point is, transness is inherently subjective exactly because it's about gender, one of the most subjective and personal concepts there is. As such the only people who have any kind of expertise or authority over its definition are those who actually live it. I don't give a shit what some dusty college prof decided the definition of transness is, it's completely irrelevant to the lived reality of actual trans people.
Related, stop calling ppl "transsexuals", some might be fine with it but most ppl nowadays dislike it and consider it outdates. Just trans (people) is fine.

I see, so you simply do not believe that a consensus can even exist (yet). It is true that gender is a complex topic that is in constant flux. If every trans person has a different definition, it becomes rather meaningless to use labels at all until a commonality can be properly established.

Trans person is a very awkward way to phrase it, though I do occasionally use it myself.

Nobody likes gatekeepers, if someone tries to tell a trans person they're not actually trans bc of xy they're full of shit. The contradiction between gender and sex/body aka what most ppl would call body dysphoria is not a requirement for being trans. You can be perfectly fine with the way your body looks, even if it isn't what society would usually define as connected to your gender.
We have a name for people who insist on dysphoria as the requirement for transness (or other bioessentialist crap like that), it's "truescum" and they can fuck right off~

Gatekeeping, eh? That is not something I expected to hear in this context haha.
I see you are rather easily incited, so I will try to keep my phrasing more neutral from now on.
I indeed considered gender dysphoria a natural part of transsexuality (is this term acceptable?). It is at least what the entire concept was build on at first. The constant rapid changes in ideas surrounding this topic are hard to keep up with, admittedly.

I'm not saying the term itself is obsolete, i'm saying that using it to describe human beings is disrespectful, especially to the people it used to be commonly used for, i.e. intersex people.

I see. Well, the topic of the thread is about the most miraculous case of true hermaphroditism, futanari, something that cannot rightly be real, so I thought it was fine to use it that way. The application of hermaphrodites for real people in this conversaiton was strictly hypothetical. I suppose when I talked about how the rare cases of real "hermaphrodites" can choose their official sex, I should have said intersex people instead. Noted.

If something cannot be objectively defined at all in any kind of consensus, then it is simply not scientifically defined yet

Nothing can be objectively defined because words are inherently subjective.

In certain circles this kind of argumentation would be derided as sophistry, but I don't want to assume negative intentions.
To be honest I would rather avoid getting into a discussion about objectivity. Yes, objectivity does not strictly exist as everything is merely perception. Can we simply accept that a common consensus is what we define as "objective" and leave this dead-end topic behind? I went out of my way to phrase it that particularly for a reason.
I would be really grateful.

This discussion went completely off-topic a while ago and I don't think we're talking to each other anymore, so it's past time I leave. You educated yourself on ancient greek ship building, so you can educate yourself on gender if you want to as well.

I suppose we really did stray quite far, didn't we? Sorry about that.
That last line however is unecessarily thorny. I have educated myself on the topic plenty.

last edited at Jan 26, 2022 4:07PM

Whatever way an actual trans person will go about their lives, in essence the situation is one of sex and gender not aligning. Period. Otherwise the definition doesn't exist, in which case there is no conversation to be had anyway for me.

I don't have the energy to engage this discussion to its full extent but here's some advice from a trans person:

If you're not trans you don't get to decide what defines being trans. Ever. Whatever you think makes sense, textbook definitions or anything else, are irrelevant. Being trans is what a trans person says it is.

Okay, so if that is your stance, do you not get to use the definition of lesbian unless you are a lesbian? Do you not get to use the definition of Caucasian unless you are caucasian?
I am a scientific minded person. I do not believe that people have ownership of definitions. If something cannot be objectively defined at all in any kind of consensus, then it is simply not scientifically defined yet, in which case I also don't have to accept any subjective definition, unless out of respect for the person's logic. I was told several times that the definition for transsexuality has been decided on by now though.

As such the most fundamental and simple way to describe what being trans is, is the following: "The gender assigned to a person at birth doesn't match their actual gender." That's it. Literally everything else is optional.

This is not actually different from what I said. Unless you believe there are dozens of genders and the like, but that is not related to classical transsexuality. Transsexuality is directly linked between gender and sex. The contradiction of the two is the point. If my sex is female and some doctor accidentally checked the male mark on my certificate, I would not be considered trans just because I was misassigned. There has to be a relation between sex and gender for the term to have any useful application.

Also, I know "hermaphrodite" is a popular term in porn but as is the case with porn terms related to transness, it is considered highly disrespectful, the proper term for (real) people with sex characteristics that "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies" is "intersexual".

Hermaphrodites, or rather futanari in the case of this discussion, have nothing inherently to do with transsexuality. Neither do intersex people. It is an entirely physical classification. True hermaphroditism is simply not recorded in human biological history, so intersex is the only realistic application of course.
Hermaphrodite is not a porn term, though. The term has existed since ancient Greece and the scientific use has also nothing to do with porn. Hermaphroditism in animals has been classified for a long time and is still used today.

I mean... one is a is scientific classification, the other is just a descriptive term. They are inherently linked. As long as the classification applies, so does the descriptor. I don't know any language where the scientific use of these terms differs.

Their inherent link is that you're expected to be the latter by being born as the former.

Not at all. The inherent link is that if you are scientifically classified as female you are a woman. These two terms are inseperable whether you are cis or trans. Sex and gender can be seperated, the terms female and woman cannot.

The definition however is pretty clear. [...]

While some transpeople are known to use the expression I quoted previously, plenty of others would disagree with you.

Subjective disagreements are inevitable on any matter of identity. But much like a lesbian is defined by being sexually attracted only to other women, a transsexual is defined by their sex and gender not aligning. If you take umbridge with the concept that the ultimate goal of trans people is alignment of body to mind, then I will concede that this may be subjective. But this seems to be rather a physical limitation than an identity matter. In an ideal world where humans could change their bodies in accordance to their gender, I doubt anybody would avoid transition. It is so inherent to the term: trans.

Now futanari on the other hand, if born hermaphrodite, would be far more complex. This is why nobody can agree what they are haha.

last edited at Jan 26, 2022 3:11PM

The... the Maria Festival? To go through with the Souer system? I could not have seen that coming.
That cliffhanger is interesting, because it could go two ways. Either Gyaru-chan does not know what Yuri is and gets interested/needles MC about it or she already knows Yuri from her previous school, but has an entirely different perspective on it.

This is quite enjoyable.

Female gender and female sex may be a different matter due to transsexuals, but they are still both female.

As I said: misunderstanding based on language differences. I'm aware that english speakers use them interchangeably, which's always been very weird to me. In my mother language, you'd never call a woman a "female" outside of very rude and sexist remarks.

I mean... one is a scientific classification, the other is just a descriptive term. They are inherently linked. As long as the classification applies, so does the descriptor. I don't know any language where the scientific use of these terms differs.

[...] the entire point of transsexuals is that they are in the wrong body

You really don't seem to interact with transgender content much.

"Content", maybe not. The definition however is pretty clear. I try my hardest to stick to definitions with things that don't apply to me, as there are about infinite subjective nuances that I will not get hung up on. This entire conversation happened because people cannot agree on what lesbians may enjoy for some reason. I wanted to give my subjective input on why this can be the case there, because it is easy for me to relate. With trans topics, I cannot, so I will not give subjective opinions.

Whatever way an actual trans person will go about their lives, in essence the situation is one of sex and gender not aligning. Period. Otherwise the definition doesn't exist, in which case there is no conversation to be had anyway for me.

last edited at Jan 26, 2022 2:23PM

I suppose there are hermaphrodite animals, so the classification should be female. But you know what I meant.

No, you're the one misunderstanding, maybe on account of language differences. They wouldn't be female, right. But "woman" refers to gender and not birth circunstances. Such character could be a woman. Or a man. Or something else entirely, depending on the character itself (granted, that's not a subject that would be breached in porn).
And, at least as far as Dynasty's concerned, Yuri refers to the relationship between two women.

I try to keep an open mind on most things, but separating the terms woman and female is a bit too far even for me. A woman will always be female. A matured human female is a woman. I don't think there is any way to go around that scientific classification. Female gender and female sex may be a different matter due to transsexuals, but they are still both female. A trans woman is of the male birth sex, but a female in gender. Similarily a trans man is a of the female birth sex, but male in gender.

If a trans woman is considered a woman, then female and woman are synonymous for gender. And thus they are also synonymous for the sex. After all the entire point of transsexuals is that they are in the wrong body that has to be altered to suit the gender. A trans woman who has not transitioned yet is male in body, but strives to be female in body eventually (in general, not always). So sex will align eventually.

Uhm... long story short female = woman when it comes to humans. Hermaphrodites arent either.

Technically. But as I pointed out, futanari and transsexuality are not the same. The only valid comparison is a real life hermaphrodite with both sex organs, which is so beyond rare that it is nearly considered a miracle.

Which is why I mentioned the nature itself of the character to be fetishistic, as opposed to Transgender.

I dont see the inherent fetishism in something being fantastical or ultra rare.

Hermaphrodites are not really women.

*female

I suppose there are hermaphrodite animals, so the classification should be female. But you know what I meant.

last edited at Jan 26, 2022 1:40PM