My first time playing DA2, I accidentally hate-slept with Merrill, right after the romance I had actually been pursuing fell through. It felt very strange. But also gay, so I took it.

This was really good. I hate it. I'm going to share it with all my friends.

I get that, but me and a lot of the writers I follow who write ABO are AFAB nb people that still identify with the female end of the spectrum in some way. We don't want an AMAB, trans woman experience, because we don't have dicks and we want them. Hell, I read futa, and still read a lot of g!p, because those are also bottom euphoric for me.

While I get being frustrated at trans fetishization in general and also some of the rapey themes that can come in ABO, I'm tired of people saying "writing women with dicks who aren't AMAB trans" equals transphobia. Writing like that basically the only way I've ever seen my ideal gender in media.

I hadn't considered this perspective, which is totally me showing my own arse here. I apologize, I was stuck inside of my own perspective a bit.

However, I did not intend to suggest that "writing women with dicks who aren't AMAB trans" is the issue, although I understand how I left that impression. There's clearly nothing inherently wrong with trans bodies, I'm just unhappy when they're used exclusively as fetish material. A woman with a penis doesn't have to be AMAB trans (no matter how hard I personally might find it not to try to map my own experience onto them), it's more important that they are a fully realized character.

Although I will note that if it's the penis thing (i.e. she doesn't have one), that seems particularly dissonant with actual trans feminine experience. So if that ends up being what "defective" means I'll choose to headcannon Akina as trans masculine, makes much more sense.

Case in point, Akira matches pretty closely to how I feel about my gender, and it frustrates me that "trans masculine" is the only possiblity you could think of to match what the manga says.

I was specifically using "trans feminine" and "trans masculine" here instead of "trans woman" and "trans man" in an attempt to more broadly include nonbinary identities, but I did not meet the mark. Even then my comment is still a bit reductive, I know, but getting things perfect is a bit out of my grasp, still.

Also, it seems like everyone's genitals aren't actually relevant to the manga, which is nice. I apologize for my part in continuing a discussion on that, as though it's okay to talk about other people's parts like this.

is it in general seen as more ok to add dicks if they're on a girl?

On who else you want to add dicks anyway ?

Ah, meant for as "Is adding a girl with a dick more ok than a guy with a dick?". I guess it's less male to just have the dick but I also guess even just a dick might be too much male for some.

Yes, clearly adding a girl is (generally) more acceptable in yuri than adding a guy (although I wouldn't complain about more bisexuality in yuri, honestly). Although I do note that it is not in any way "male" to be a trans woman; we aren't men, buddy. This is exactly what 塞雷娅 is talking about when they describe transphobia.

In this type of fictional setting I'd assume trans people could exist but also totally new types that are girls with dicks?

Yes, clearly trans people could still exist. But choosing to create a type of character who has a trans body, and then writing about those characters while ignoring trans people, sends the message that trans people aren't worth considering, and our experiences aren't worth writing about, and that it's acceptable to consider our bodies as sexual objects without having to accept our basic humanity (since so much ABO stuff, and also futa, is straight up smut). It isn't difficult to look at real world fetishization of trans bodies to see how this dynamic is harmful.

Of course, this discussion is of limited relevance here until we have confirmation of what Takamiya Jin means with their character being a defective alpha. Although I will note that if it's the penis thing (i.e. she doesn't have one), that seems particularly dissonant with actual trans feminine experience. So if that ends up being what "defective" means I'll choose to headcannon Akina as trans masculine, makes much more sense.

So has anyone talked about the sequel to this? I was confused by the translation notes. Are they still planning to translate the next one, or are they asking someone else to do it?

Looks mostly like they're planning to do it, eventually, but aren't actively working on it. So... Both? Depends on which files, exactly, they misplaced.

ABO is mainly used as an attempt to separate gender and sex more explicitly than our real society does. Female Alphas being women who are sexually male, and male Omegas being men who are sexually female.

So they're trans. But in a weird, biologically essentialist way that means that you don't have to admit it or understand real world trans experience. Cool.

So much of the ABO setup, here, drips in the possibility of trans allegory, but the actual implementation makes it hard to map to meatspace. There are three genders... But then let's immediately separate the genders along sex lines, so that gender is different from but still intimately related to sex. Both men and women can get pregnant... But dominance and leadership are deliberately tied to the ability to impregnate people, and the ability to get pregnant is treated, in and of itself, as a moral good. This is extremely frustrating, because I can see how these ideas play into wider narratives about how men and women are supposed to behave, reinforcing negative stereotypes. Like, I suppose it's good that omegas (the stand in for the "woman" role) are horny, but that's really all I'm getting out of this.

(Also, to be clear, what I'm hearing about general ABO tropes are much more problematic. Like, tying the presence of a penis to leadership is... Gross. So so gross. But I'm trying to keep my discussion more focused on this particular manga.)

The story doesn't seem to rely too heavily on the ABO stuff, though. At least, so far. We spend a lot of time on ABO exposition, but there isn't a lot that's really related to it otherwise. MC finds out that there's a hot girl at school, goes looking, finds her, falls in love, is rejected, pursues it gently anyway. Not an uncommon yuri story. Most of my worries are about what "defective alpha" and "Physical characteristics: beta" end up meaning. Based on a lot of the discussion of ABO tropes here, I worry that it's going to mean she doesn't have a penis, which... Clearly isn't a real problem, even in the fictional world, since they still know what yuri is.

My understanding of Japan is that they're honestly pretty conservative (you notice Chiaki was sterilized during his gender confirmation surgery, that's basically mandatory in Japan if you transition) on issues and so an old doctor using outdated terms isn't surprising.

Hell, I'm transitioning in the US, and my endocrinologist here tried to point me to the Harry Benjamin standards of care instead of the current WPATH ones. I wouldn't be surprised to see this sort of thing in any transition story, in any context, ever, much less one specifically set in Japan.

Takatou helps him out by changing pants with him.

Takatou is a real bro.

I work at a liquor store, and never thought that my super power of identifying bottles of booze would come up while reading yuri.

Not that I'm complaining. Those are some lovingly rendered backgrounds for the liquor store in chapter 6.

^ Yes. There are only a few wlw ships available in the game, though.

Damn Nintendo, filling the game with cute ladies I can't date.

There's another related image on the author's twitter: https://twitter.com/makkusuoko/status/1347905967690829829

I can't help but feel like using Calliope's shoulder as a head rest is a bad idea, with the spikes and all.

^^^^ Oh YES this ship is back.

This is the truest distillation of gap moe.

last edited at Sep 15, 2020 1:53PM

I am SO here for this.

... It took me so long to notice, but that's the Animal Crossing special edition Switch.

@Hauteclere:

Byleth has certainly seen a lot of battles, as referenced several times in the game from her history as a mercenary, so she's frequently drawn with lots of scars.

Edelgard was tortured and experimented on as a child and always wears clothing covering her completely from the neck down (CW: violence), so a lot of headcannons have her also covered in scars.

last edited at Jan 6, 2020 11:01PM

@Aquwin: Not that I remember, but I never got through the entire game. It was still some of the best Harvest Moon I've played and I still recommend it on that basis, if that's a thing you're into, but the yuri is... Not really there.