An excellent way to quit smoking. (Even if it was also the reason one of them started.)

Also, I just have to say, when Fukumura came back and sat down on the same side of the table and convinced her to sleep over instead of going home, all my brain was thinking was "Why don't you just miss the last train?".

Oh, great! Now I'm binge re-reading that.

As to this, I'm not big on smoking in my yuri, but I'll make an exception for a quitting-smoking yuri. Plus it's cute.

This is absolutely darling.

Must say I wasn't expecting that. Good show.

Yea i dunno im not a huge fan of the short-haired girl. I get they were going for the cute kinda possessive but her actively sabotaging her friends social life is too toxic for my taste.

Yeah, seems pretty dysfunctional.
The short-haired one has this weird "I refuse to define myself as more than a friend even though I'm obviously obsessed with this girl, so the only way I can be exceptional is to make sure she has no other friends" thing going.

Oof, the Little Empress is finally showing her claws. I hope she understands that she is officially declaring war on the Dowager at this moment, and has made off-screen preparations accordingly. :-)

I mean the Dowager's scheme here was already kinda declaring war on her. What was she supposed to do otherwise, let them smear her as a violent abusive empress?

That is indeed what she was supposed to do, according to traditional filial piety expectations. Doing so would deescalate the situation, and place the Dowager back on top of the pecking order in the Rear Palace.

I dunno. There's a few different kinds of status at play here; the "elder generation" status is one, but only one. There's also simple hierarchical status, where the emperor is actually the head of government and the dowager empress is not. And oddly there's gender status, because supposedly the emperor is a guy--something the dowager empress may actually be miscalculating because in her head the emperor is NOT a guy. Traditional China was sexist as hell. Of course the empress doesn't directly collect either of those statuses--but as the emperor's wife she gets some by association.
Gender also comes into play with the filial piety thing--sure, the dowager empress gets some respect for being the emperor's mother . . . but it's not like she's anybody's FATHER, which is where Confucian filial piety really comes into play.

Finally, it would be different if it was the Empress' word directly against the dowager Empress' word. But it isn't--the people making the allegation are a couple of servants--high ranking, high status servants, probably minor nobles in their own right, but it's a bit outrageous that the dowager Empress is making a claim that the Empress' word should be of less import than theirs. In effect, the dowager Empress is not just trying to put the Empress below HER in the pecking order, she's trying to put her below the SERVANTS. Letting that pass doesn't "de-escalate" the situation, it puts her on a path to being the servants' servant eating gruel or some damn thing.

There's also the fact that the Empress hadn't been making a move--she was fine with the dowager Empress being top of the pecking order. She was cheerfully bowing down to her, giving her respect, doing penance over little imagined mistakes. The dowager Empress didn't need to be RESTORED to the top of the pecking order, until she created a crisis by trying to push the Empress far further down it than would be correct for her position.

last edited at Jul 18, 2024 1:23AM

What is it with rain and colds?

That part I understand, but what's with the common cold knocking someone out cold for a full day--and then they're 100% back in shape the day after? Not like any colds I've ever seen at least

Manga colds
--Never involve sneezing, coughing or snot
--Always involve fever and weakness
--Often involve hospital visits and fever medication
--Are usually fast-onset and end quickly and cleanly once the fever breaks

I have this feeling that sometime way in the past someone translated "24 hour flu" as "cold" and everyone has just followed that original translation ever since . . .

I did not expect a random rape scene to happen pretty much in the background / two panels aside of this story, without any real tie to the plot... Huh. Eww...

Yeah, and it's set up to make it seem like succubi casually whipping people up into a rape frenzy is a regular occurrence and is also not treated as very serious. It kinda feels like Ascendance of the Bookworm where the main story is usually light and low stakes but the world just around it is absolutely brutal

That is not a comparison that would have occurred to me. Maybe because Ascendance of a Bookworm is, um, good. And the thing is, when the brutality of that world gets put in front of the MC, it BOTHERS her; the contrasts aren't ignored, they're used.

I really wasn't sure what to think of this at first, so much chaos it wasn't clear just where it was going. But after a few chapters . . . well, it's pretty funny.

This seems really good. I like to see a character with pizzazz. Not as indestructible as she seems, I notice.

Alternatively the simpler answer, this series isn't named "Smart Woman" :P

Point. :D

The WTF is strong in this one.

This is interesting. The one thing I don't quite get is, why are they running away? The wife would be a suspect, but she didn't do it and has a strong alibi. The girl who actually did it, there's no reason she would be a suspect. I mean, just try floating the theory as a cop:

"OK, hear me out here--What if it was some woman who doesn't know the guy and barely knows his wife, and she murdered him either out of a sense of justice for the abuse the wife is suffering that we don't know about, or out of a twisted attraction based on a kind of sexuality we'd prefer to pretend doesn't exist?"
"Uh, OK. Ah, do any of the possible bare acquaintances have histories of violence or extreme senses of justice or lesbianism?"
"No, but--"
"Soooo, that co-worker said he had a mistress; have we scoped that out yet?"

Their chances of getting away with it by just carrying on normally are very strong. On the other hand, if they run, that's like admitting guilt and the long arm of the law will be looking for them and trying for extradition if it finds them. Their chances become . . . fair. Plus they have to try to start their lives over from scratch. How is this a good option, aside from "it lets the story happen"?

This is the future that liberals want

liberals have better taste than I thought.

Well that got dark rather suddenly.

I love this, it's like the good ol' days of quarterly yuri hime but with more polish

Nail polish, to be precise. But yes, it does have that lovely old school yuri girls feeling.

Wait, wait! WHERE is her underwater hand?

Getting pedantic, but I don't think the lady in the mirror is a ghost. Well, she might be, we don't know very much about how she got that way. But the impression I get isn't so much girl dies-->haunts mirror as girl alive-->gets trapped in mirror, either as a whole or just her spirit or something. The difference being that once you're dead, coming back to life is generally not a thing, but if you're trapped, you could escape. Right now her plan is to escape by possessing our heroine, but it's all kind of vague . . . she doesn't seem to know how exactly. Given the general uncertainty about just what is going on and how it works, I don't think we've foreclosed on the possibility of her getting out in a more solid sort of way.

Hopefully the princess stands up and hits the stone cold stunner on that assistant

Prophetic words. Smack!

So this servant thinks that she can, in view of the Empress, push someone and blame the Empress for it?

I'm trying to wrap my head around why anyone would think this was a workable course of action. Someone tried that in a real Imperial court, I don't care if it's Asian or Roman or Persian or whatever, they would find themselves getting forty lashes double quick. This isn't a case of your word against hers--she's the Empress, your word is NOTHING, what happened is whatever she says happened. Heck, even if Yu Dingdang HAD pushed the princess, it would be amazingly stupid of a servant to say so, let alone in an admonishing way. I guess maybe she has some protection because she serves the Dowager, and she's probably a noble in some way, but still there are limits.

I'm thinking of a bit from Blackadder; the Queen and her stupid courtier Percy are playing some little ball game--
Percy: "Caught it! I win!"
Queen: "Percy. Who's the queen?"
Percy: " . . . Whoops! Butterfingers!"
This servant has not properly internalized this concept.

last edited at Jun 10, 2024 5:45PM

"So why is it that you, the one who can't see anything, are happier than me?"
Well, I guess if you're determined to despise everything and everybody, the things and people in your life aren't going to make you happy.

"my Crush" Dying in Gay Panic

Before you get too excited, the original word was "my Oshi." The scanlators like to translate it to "crush" for this series but Oshi is actually used to refer to an artist you love and support

Yeees, although I've noticed a recurrent theme in stuff with an "Oshi" of how people aren't supposed to actually be in love with their oshi but they are anyway.

At this rate it might be best for Ruka if Suuna never learns what sex is. Poor girl won't be able to stand up for days if the beast inside Suuna awakens.

Ruka about to get the Stephen Hawking special

Extra appropriate since Suuna is dense as a black hole.

"since it's just the two of us we've been staying up late"
staying up late doing what I wonder? probably playing too much uno./j

I'm sure that's it.

Bla bla bla about romance, she should go poly, even the author continue drawn 3P because she is not convinced

Go poly? I don't think she even wants a cracker. Man, seems like there's a LOT of people into parrot play lately . . .

I like that the she's so frustrated to see the General she took it out on the grass. Gird your loins, General, battle will soon be joined.

I think she's looking for the kind of battle where you UN-gird your loins.