Hello and welcome! glad you found the light! hahaha

Thank you Serenata! And me too, hahaha. I'll check out both links!

Hey OrangePekoe, I'll read Notes From The Garden Of Lilies soon since it's a short series, my goal is to start with short stuff. Simoun have been in my backlog forever, I'll try to watch it this year yet, try to fit it with my yearly-christmas watch of Candy Boy.

I don't really know that I have a "favourite" tho. That's such a strong word...

Yeah, I used "favorite" in lack of better term. I'm always using the wrong words to be honest. Like I said, I'm a dumbfuck.

Welcome! I didn't even introduce myself I just threw myself in here lol, you're already on step ahead of me.

Thank you CaptionBirb! And nah, not really hahahaha.

I prefer manga just so I can have a visual for my non-creative brain, novels are my second choice because they tend to explain things more. I don't really like anime or shows that much dunno why. The only yuri show I've liked is Killing Eve.

I also prefer manga over anime, I feel like I can go "through it" faster. Watching something, I have to sit down and I can't speed it up unless I want to make it comical for me. That said, I like a good show/anime from time to time. But I got to be in mood for that. I have to check Killing Eve-ntually (how cringe, I'm sorry). ...Anyway, do you have a goodreads account to keep track of the novels you read? Are you currently reading something? I'm reading Wolfsbane Winter, it's okay. Nothing more than that. In terms of yuri content, novels are probably the stuff I consume the most nowadays (since I started last year, I mean). Do you prefer reading on e-reader or physical media? I love my kindle. Yeah, I'll check out your list too, though as 25 years old granny, I'm too tired and jaded to be into drama.

First animanga yuri was probably Maria-sama.

Full disclosure, I haven't watched Maria-sama yet. The fuck I'm doing right?

Same. Looking back on it now, it's rather hilarious as to how much of my taste in media and aesthetics stems from a whimsical desire to check out a random comic about cute lesbians.

I own so much to 2D/fictional lesbians. Now, I have to ask you Kirin (and everyone else too), don't you get frustrated with visual novels? Personally, I always get a bad/unsatisfying ending and I get bitter about it because I don't like replaying it right away. Maybe it's because I'm super casual at video games or something. All that said, I hear nothing but good things about Flowers. I'll look up Her Shim-Cheong (I'm quite fond of the aesthetic of chinese comics). Let me know when you do your list so I can check it out too!

Also, welcome to the forum. 'Tis is a silly place, but quite gay when it counts.

Well, that's what matters hahahaha. Thanks!

My favorite yuri media are construction paper x magic marker. They're so lewd together.

Heh. Now aren't you cute.

Thanks for being so kind and welcoming everyone! I appreciate it. I feel like I got a lot of yuri to consume but also I got some directions too. Apologies for such long reply (don't feel forced to answer).

Full disclosure, I haven't watched Maria-sama yet. The fuck I'm doing right?

Well, it's older, it's anime and you say you don't watch that easily, and it's mostly Massive Subtext rather than Actual Lesbians, apart from Sei's tragic love life. So it's classic, but maybe there are better options. Though I don't know how much Not Subtext anime there is even now, if we exclude outright hentai.

I own so much to 2D/fictional lesbians. Now, I have to ask you Kirin (and everyone else too), don't you get frustrated with visual novels? Personally, I always get a bad/unsatisfying ending and I get bitter about it because I don't like replaying it right away.

No issues, that's a common concern with VNs. A lot of them, rather rage-inducingly, are explicitly designed with choices that run contrary to common sense (like picking an incredibly rude reply instead of a civil one when you're trying to complete the route of a romantic interest). This is mostly to force players to think (or rather, to think differently from how they might normally approach a situation), but the abject lack of warnings or tips in many, many VNs can send you spiralling into a bad end. I guess devs think that it boosts replay value, but I've met a ton of people who just shun VNs as a whole because of it.

That being said, I technically cheat and look up online guides to preserve my sanity, since I don't have the energy to play through a VN fifteen times until I grasp the moon logic at work (another option is save scumming). My laptop is also a rancid pile of junk that can't run anything with advanced visuals, so I mostly just watch YouTube playthroughs, which are very conveniently labelled with route names and good endings. Basically, I'm happy as long as I get the whole story, even if I didn't 'earn' it by predicting that you actually had to pick 'fling a chair' when Sakura-san from next door tells you that she's depressed. xD

I saw Maria sama, I don't remember if I saw all the seasons ... but yeah.

My first encounter with yuri was Strawberry panic! hahaha it was so cute and moe I never thought they WOULD HAVE SEXXXXXXX OMG I was so young and red like a tomato back then! and then Strawberry shake (manga), I probably said this before somewhere in this forum.

Here's a funny thing! I found strawberry Shake because I originally thought that it was strawberry panic as manga! so by accident, I found two of the best yuri works lo/ and of course I was in love with Strawberry shake so I investigated Hayashiya Shizuru and found Hayate x Blade! and ended up here in dynasty eventually.

last edited at Dec 10, 2020 10:51PM

I remember the first actual yuri series that I read all the way through: Girl Friends. I was hooked from that point on, like a lot of people. I still haven't seen Maria-sama ga Miteru, and I think Strawberry Panic was also the first yuri anime I ever saw.

last edited at Dec 10, 2020 11:15PM

I've read the Maria-sama ga Miteru light novels, I've read the spin-off manga, and I've watched all seasons of the anime. So yeah, you could say I know a thing or two. (⌒.－)＝★ My nick White Rose comes 50% from Sei-sama and 50% from Asellus's best princess & girlfriend.

My first exposure to yuri was Sailor Moon, as I guess was the case for most women of my generation. If you think that's too subtexty and not explicit enough, then certain episodes of Cream Lemon. (>///‿///<)

My state is part of this bullshit that Texas is attempting right now. I can't even express the absolute fury I feel about this assault on our election. I want every single one of his cultists in a psych ward getting treatment, but there's no legal grounds for it unless their immediate family commits them.

For anyone not in the US right now, thank your lucky stars. Things might be about to get really bad around here, especially for people like me who refuse to hide our disdain for these people and their führer anymore. I made the decision a few years ago to never fight physically for anything ever again, and only use words. Refusal to retaliate if they decide to turn violent is part of that, with the only deal-breaker being a member of my family under threat of harm.

For anyone who is in the US right now, and has family that are part of this cult, please get them the help they need, by whatever means are necessary. I'm so thankful that nobody in my family or circle of friendly acquaintances and friends has been conned by this man. Anyway, rant over, and good luck to those who want to see my state's AG in prison for sedition.

^ The U.S. has always been held up as the land of milk and honey where I'm from, and immigrating there is supposed to be the greatest thing a kid from my nation could achieve. Growing up, I heard so many great things about it, and to compare those myths with the hellscape that America has become today is truly disconcerting. I've actually got a cousin who flew to the States last year to set up a medical practice, and she opted to settle in the South instead of someplace like NYC because it's cheaper to live and set up a profession there. It's pretty much the most dangerous place a person can go, especially if they're a POC, and though things haven't gotten too bad for her because she's in a dorm, I would not want to be in her place. Even after Trump's loss, fundamentalism in America has received a massive boost, and it's gonna take a long, arduous battle to push it back down. In the meanwhile, take care and stay safe.

Oh, cool, there was a discussion recently on the Discord server about how you got into yuri but since I'm in the wrong time zone people had moved on to other subjects by the time I checked the app.

The first time I heard of anything gay was back when Willow came out on Buffy and all my homophobic friends were disgusted. I remember not understanding why being gay was bad (my parents didn't raise me to hate anyone different), but apparently it was really, really bad. Fast-forward a few years and as I'm getting into anime thanks to a gay friend (take that, homophobic friends from middle school!), I check out Mai-HiME. When I reach Shizuru's story I'm like, wait you can do that??? Something kind of clicked into place and I went in search of other animated lesbian content, but... People who watched anime at the time may remember that it was slim pickings.

My first yuri anime was Kannazuki no Miko, which was... fine. I watched a bad quality fansub that happened to glitch right for the episode in which the infamous scene happened, so I got lucky. The yuri shows I've enjoyed the most are Simoun, Battle Athletes Victory and El Cazador (considering it yuri or good is an unpopular opinion but I can't say I care). Favorite non-yuri anime is Haibane Renmei, although you could argue it has strong subtext. As for manga, I love Strawberry Shake Sweet by Hayashiya Shizuru, anything by Fujieda Miyabi, and some works by Morishima Akiko and Otsu Hiyori. A recent series I've enjoyed is A Kiss and a White Lily by Canno.

Curiously, I've never watched Utena. I think it's such a classic that if I happened to not like it I would have to question my taste, and I'm not ready to do that.

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I'm watching journalists on Twitter talk about what's going on in America right now and I don't know how worried I should be. This coup attempt is a long shot, right? Right?? Anyway, stay safe everyone.

I prefer manga just so I can have a visual for my non-creative brain, novels are my second choice because they tend to explain things more. I don't really like anime or shows that much dunno why. The only yuri show I've liked is Killing Eve.

I also prefer manga over anime, I feel like I can go "through it" faster. Watching something, I have to sit down and I can't speed it up unless I want to make it comical for me. That said, I like a good show/anime from time to time. But I got to be in mood for that.

I agree I don't really like how slow some animes are, but I found yuri because of it. I remember running into a Crunchyroll article that revealed the character design of happy sugar life, which lead to me reading all of the volumes that were out.

I have to check Killing Eve-ntually (how cringe, I'm sorry). ...

Usually, I don't like puns but I wasn't expecting that one, made me cackle for the first time in a while.

Do you prefer reading on e-reader or physical media? I love my kindle.

Definitely physical, my eyes start to hurt after a while and I just like the smell and texture of books lol. I remember getting my first physical manga (which I think was bloom into you?) I couldn't even touch it I felt like I was going to faint. It took me the whole day to read one volume.

Are you currently reading something? I'm reading Wolfsbane Winter, it's okay. Nothing more than that. In terms of yuri content, novels are probably the stuff I consume the most nowadays (since I started last year, I mean).

I just finished up Adachi and Shimamura the other day (there are also two manga versions if your interested). Speaking of Bloom Into You I heard Regarding Saeki Sayaka is good. It's also written by Iruma Hitoma(who wrote Adachi and Shimamura) I'm planning on reading that sometime this month. Most of the novels I read aren't yuri though for example recently I've been reading The Enemy and The Arc of a Scythe Trilogy.

Yeah, I'll check out your list too, though as 25 years old granny, I'm too tired and jaded to be into drama.

I actually don't really like drama either I just like to give myself anxiety I guess.

Anyway, do you have a goodreads account to keep track of the novels you read?

Now that you mention it I'm surprised I don't, I might make one sometime today.

Welcome new member!

I got Pokémon shield for cheap. I'm glad I didn't believe all the bullshit about this game...buy the lack of older Pokémon does suck.
I also bought Banner of the maid, it's fun!

Homolive ring saga continues: https://youtu.be/3oJF6a91BO0

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https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/83537526
The demon girl next door Momo x Shamiko

Bonus TakaMori: https://mobile.twitter.com/Ronderu__/status/1325254672576204800?s=20

Do you prefer reading on e-reader or physical media?

Forgot I wanted to reply to this earlier. I prefer reading a physical book, but rarely do because of lack of space to put them, so my Kindle and BookWalker apps are full of books I couldn't fit on my shelves (which are full anyway because many of the books I read don't have ebook editions). I have quite a few older manga, but I've been buying like two physical manga a year for a while now and the rest is on BookWalker. If the site shuts down, I'm screwed.

The last novel I read was The Priory of the Orange Tree, which is fantastic. I actually bought the massive, dictionary-sized physical book because I knew I'd enjoy it and I'd want it on my shelves.

For anyone not in the US right now, thank your lucky stars.

Sadly, Donny Fartpants' malign influence isn't confined to your side of the pond.

^ The U.S. has always been held up as the land of milk and honey where I'm from, and immigrating there is supposed to be the greatest thing a kid from my nation could achieve. Growing up, I heard so many great things about it, and to compare those myths with the hellscape that America has become today is truly disconcerting. I've actually got a cousin who flew to the States last year to set up a medical practice, and she opted to settle in the South instead of someplace like NYC because it's cheaper to live and set up a profession there. It's pretty much the most dangerous place a person can go, especially if they're a POC, and though things haven't gotten too bad for her because she's in a dorm, I would not want to be in her place. Even after Trump's loss, fundamentalism in America has received a massive boost, and it's gonna take a long, arduous battle to push it back down. In the meanwhile, take care and stay safe.

Sorta reminds me of a story about my grandfather (who's been dead for a few decades now but anyways). For background when he was born we still had portraits of the reigning Czar displayed in public buildings, and until at least WW2 the US was the prime destination for surplus population looking for greener pastures (Sweden, rather closer by, took over the role postwar until we ceased to be a net exporter of labour in the Seventies) - "*nouveau riche* American cousin" was a popular-culture stock figure for generations. For a working-class lad of the era he was actually rather well-traveled (Labour activism had its perks), but only within Europe, and had quite the idealised image of the US which according to witnesses he was not at all shy about voicing.
His children, who made considerable socioeconomic advance from their working-class background in the postwar affluence (up to fairly senior corporate exec in the case of my eldest aunt), eventually grew rather tired of his wide-eyed gushing about the country so for his 70th birthday (this would have been in the Eighties) they got together and bought him an all-expenses-paid tour thereof as a gift.

When he came back from the trip he was no longer an unconditional fan.

FWIW my mother, a historian by trade, is of the opinion that nowadays the US is displaying (besides its assorted structural problems) the classic symptoms and internal tensions of an empire in decline and in the usual rampant denial about the fact.

Signora's interrogation technique Genshin Impact NSFW Lumine x Signora Lactation

The United States has always been a hellhole with a veneer so covered in blood, people think it's festive red paint. Ever since the slaughter and exploitation of the indigenous people for the profit of the colonists, it's been the same. The main trap is that immigrants and minorities, after selling their souls to the capitalist machine, are able to join the elite and become "icons of the American dream" for those of the same background. It all needs to stop and be remade, but like that elusive jackpot for the gambling addict, the dream refuses to die or be seen as it actually is.

The main trap is that immigrants and minorities, after selling their souls to the capitalist machine, are able to join the elite and become "icons of the American dream" for those of the same background.

I'm... not really seeing how this is supposed to be a negative. The fact that they actually have a shot at achieving at all is a major draw for a reason you know. Because whatever the many flaws of the US it's assuredly a better, safer and more equal-opportunity place to live than some 80-plus % of the globe (the main real competition being a fairly circumscribed part of Europe, as the developed Asian states tend not be terribly welcoming). People leave the third world for the first en masse despite all the risks involved for the very sensible reason that the former is by and large an inveterate shithole with scant opportunities for bettering your lot in life (without trampling a ton of other have-nots underfoot anyway).

It all needs to stop and be remade, but like that elusive jackpot for the gambling addict, the dream refuses to die or be seen as it actually is.

There's certainly a laundry list of things that really need serious reforming about the US, but fat chance getting anywhere with that when one of the biggest ones is a political system that has a strong tendency to rampant polarisation and deadlocking built right into its core mechanisms and duly retarded amounts of vested interests all around in perpetuating the edifice as is.

Being a better hellhole for immigrants than the hellhole they came from should never be the goal of any society, and that's basically all the US has going for it at this point. I think only a real shift towards accountability, which neither of the current political parties want, is going to do anything to fix the state of crony capitalism that continues to perpetuate itself.

"Democracy is the most pitiless form of governement, for it gives the people exactly the leaders they deserve" quipped somebody once. Near as I can tell from here across the Pond 'Murricans like living in a farcically dysfunctional excuse of Western democracy, though admittedly that might be partly because the majority of them apparently don't even realise alternatives exist and could be pursued. I mean it's a given that the extant political establishement isn't keen on say reviewing the electoral system into any of the varieties that'd make more than two parties factually relevant (which would fix an awful lot of what's wrong with the present hyper-polarised state of political life in the country) due to obvious entrenched interests; but if there exist grassroots movements demanding such reforms then at the very least they aren't of a magnitude and relevance that would be visible in the public discourse the rest of the world sees.

Most of the rest pretty much stems from 'Murricans apparently being collectively allergic to sensible organisation and governance because MUH FREEDUMS so that about no two states in the whole federation actually have quite the same laws, just for starters.

Maybe I'm just biased from having grown up in the legacy of one of the first and most efficiently centralised states in Europe but to me that just strikes me as a giant mess that serves no practical purpose whatsoever. Bad governance is a luxury good observed an op-ed in The Economist years ago and that very much seems to be the case here; gratuitous mess in service of empty slogans for basically no other reason than having a sufficiently lavish resource base to not immediately go bankrupt over it, and not wanting to think about complicated things hard enough to realise how dangerous this is in the long run.

The United States has always been a hellhole with a veneer so covered in blood, people think it's festive red paint. Ever since the slaughter and exploitation of the indigenous people for the profit of the colonists, it's been the same. The main trap is that immigrants and minorities, after selling their souls to the capitalist machine, are able to join the elite and become "icons of the American dream" for those of the same background. It all needs to stop and be remade, but like that elusive jackpot for the gambling addict, the dream refuses to die or be seen as it actually is.

And other countries don't do similar things? Don't fool yourself. Other countries have exploited people, engaged in wars of aggression, deliberately spread illnesses... No person, city, country or whatever is or ever will be perfect.

^ I think Throbelisk's point was that the USA in particular has blatantly distorted its history and covered up a lot of very nasty realities thanks to the power that it has over global media and politics. From internal issues like the Tulsa race massacre to the fact that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not classified a war crime, despite the fact that a 1946 military investigation shows that Japan would've surrendered by November 1945 at the latest with zero aggression required- it's pulled a lot of bullshit that's not remotely well-known or documented, and many realize just how cruel and heartless the country is only after they've toiled and sacrificed far too many things to gain entry.

And other countries don't do similar things? Don't fool yourself. Other countries have exploited people, engaged in wars of aggression, deliberately spread illnesses... No person, city, country or whatever is or ever will be perfect.

This was entirely unnecessary and missing my entire point, much like Kirin pointed out. I've lived in the United States for over 38 years and seen first-hand exactly how much of a garbage pile it is. Your whataboutism can't elevate it to the status that media and apologists want it to have, nor can it evaporate the gigantic sea of blood that has been spilled to get it to this point. You're absolutely correct: no place or person will ever be perfect, but ignoring atrocities to build cities is part of the problem our planet is currently facing right now.

last edited at Dec 12, 2020 3:37AM

Sakura Cartelet posted:

And other countries don't do similar things? Don't fool yourself. Other countries have exploited people, engaged in wars of aggression, deliberately spread illnesses... No person, city, country or whatever is or ever will be perfect.

No country is perfect but the US is one of the worse ones due to our global status. Since the end of WW2 we did a lot to help the Allies and Germany and Japan recover but due to the Cold War we did a lot of really shady shit like installing literal dictators in a lot of countries (mostly in the Middle East and South America) which really screwed those nations up for decades. And most off them still haven't recovered from our interference. The only modern nation that I'd say comes close to being as bad as the US is the UK but most of their bullshit comes from the 1600-1800 timeframe or so and as such it's fairly removed from the modern UK.

The entire reason Iran is such a shit hole, for example, is specifically due to the United States attempting a coup to install a friendly dictator. This resulted in Iran hating us and devolving into an authoritarian state that's a borderline theocracy. And we've done that in a lot of different nations. If I recall correctly, Saddam Hussein came to power because of the US. Osama bin Laden was originally working with the CIA. As someone else pointed out, we basically genocided Native Americans. (Canada actually has quite a bad track record with that as well.) For decades after the end of WW2 our government has used our position to force most of the world to kowtow to their whims, often to the detriment of those other nations and their people. I want to say it was Nixon who actually tried to undermine diplomacy in the Middle East or SE Asia before he became president in order to delay it until he could claim credit for it. A lot of nations have done much of this too. But a lot of them are also currently considered global villains as it is, ie: Russia and China. And they deserve to be considered villains. But for some reason the US is exempt from this despite being just as bad in most ways. (Well I'd actually say we're better than China and Russia in particular since those two countries completely disregard the needs of other nations. But we're not a huge amount better.)

Faits accomplis over a hundred years old are terribly irrelevant for people seeking better future prospects in life than offered by their only too often presently drought-stricken, war-torn and/or crime-ridden (etc. etc.) homelands tho.

Chronic and willful ignorance about any number of things is certainly one of the major problems with the US, but that's what happens when the cultural mindset is actively hostile to investing the resources of the state into the betterment of the populace and society (OH NOES COMMUNISMS) and critical self-reflection (Y U H8 FREEDUM). One result of which is that it's increasingly dependent on importing educated and intellectually developed workforce because so much of the potential of the native population is outright wasted through a chronic unwillingness to invest resources in developing it. Which obviously doesn't bode well in the long run.

to the fact that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not classified a war crime, despite the fact that a 1946 military investigation shows that Japan would've surrendered by November 1945 at the latest with zero aggression required

Uh, yeah, no. Strategic bombing was not a war crime, it was an universally accepted weapon everyone used to the extent their resources (in practice airforce makeups) allowed those days. It was certainly horribly inefficient in achieving its actual stated goals and based on seriously flawed theories and assumptions but that only became apparent in hindsight (which is a major reason pinpoint surgical accuracy became a major airpower developement goal thereafter).

And during the war Allies had basically zero human intelligence on Japan - by '45 the last Soviet spy networks on the ground were long since destroyed. They had to make their projections based on observations of Japanese military behaviour on the ground (ie. a consistent disregard of pretty much even the most basic laws and customs of war and fanatical willingness to fight to the death) and shocking incidents like the mass suicides of civilians during the Battle of Okinawa, which is what informed the extremely grim preliminary estimates for Operation Downfall.
Which was actually exactly what the Japanese high command intended; they were hoping that the apparent greater willingness of their troops and subjects to die would deter a final invasion on the as-such entirely accurate assumption the Democracies were altogether more sensitive to casualties than themselves. (Not that it took much; the mangaka Shigeru Mizuki, who lost an arm to an Allied air raid in Papua New Guinea, opined in an autobiographical work that the military's "contempt for death had perverted into contempt for life".)

In practice the Home Isles were being starved out and destroyed from the air already with entirely conventional weapons and the mood of the populace was such that the (very unpleasant) secret police were getting seriously worried about the possibility of a popular uprising; but the Allies had no way of knowing this at the time and quite understandably had zero desire to play further masochistic death-cult games with the ultranationalist nutters still in charge.
The Bombs, as it happens, did indeed have the desired effect - they completely discredited the deterrence argument of the fight-to-last hardliners (the second one dispelled any straw-grasping delusional hopes of the weapon somehow being an unique one-use affair) and allowed the moderates of the regime to actually sue for peace. Which in turn averted the unknowable but doubtless absolutely horrendous loss of life that would have accompanied Downfall - which, for the record, among other fun stuff envisaged large-scale use of chemical weapons as the Allies knew from signals intelligence the Japanese would be in no position to retaliate in kind (which as everyone had realised after the Great War was the only situation where using those things actually made any sense).