Every time I come back to this, I feel more enlightened than the last. The art is so captivating, and even though the ending is quite bitter, I still feel like it was necessary to fully convey its message

I don't know if it was the translation, but the "cool girl" seemed really awkward. Kinda like "You sexy. We fuck". idk. I will always appreciate non-moe art.

Ok just finished, and I don't hate the ending? It's not like the first two chapters had even a hint of romance. Also I see no reason to think blond stayed with the bf forever just b/c he went with him that one time. Maybe when they got home she packed up all her stuff and moved to the Netherlands. shrug

This was nice, though the art style is kinda ugly tbh. I kinda wish this had a sequel.

Mal's boyfriend is a piece of shit, btw.

Who else is reminded of Stjepan Šejić by this style? (I Like It!)

Who else is reminded of Stjepan Šejić by this style? (I Like It!)

Aah, that's what I was trying to think of, thanks for that!

Those defining body lines were a bit too extreme for my tastes (I like soft grolls) but hey still enjoyed it, though the ending left me kinda hanging

That Malena woman really needs to fix her communication skills, she has the attitude of a teenager.

I wish it was more of your work on here it was good ☺️

Ending was lagging and this type of art is new. The two people in the backseat in ch 3 were hilarious

Every time I come back to this, I feel more enlightened than the last.

Honestly same here :/

Dayum that ending really hits it where it hurts lol. I’m usually not a big fan of bittersweet endings like this, but this story just makes it work so well (F in chat for Mal)

That dumb blonde didn’t realize what she’s losing in the end. Went back to her ass homophobic boyfriend will definitely her biggest mistake, I don’t like how it ends but I love the art details of the characters especially the women, it’s like I’m staring a stunning ancient Greek sculptures.

This is one of the best shorter series I've come across on this site? The art is just full-stop exquisite, and the juxtaposition of sculpted bodies uniting polished curves and stony intensity with the seedy atmosphere of dance-club toilet stalls and coiling sheets in dark bedrooms is a vibe that absolutely fucks. Like, I had trouble moving from page to page because I was so incredibly captivated by just how perfectly the artist captured light and shadows dancing across ridges and hollows, condensing an incredible degree of unsaid poignance into every lonely, half-lit pose.

The narrative is also utterly fascinating despite the somewhat hard-to-decipher dialogue, since it shows so much more than it tells. I love how the Butch is framed as a kind of Frankenstein's Monster in the eyes of homophobic characters, a blend of masculine and feminine traits, a new Prometheus who threatens their narrow understanding of identity, pleasure and normalcy, an anomalous existence who distorts every rule of their heteronormative world, and yet in practice, she's so very kind and courteous, more human in her belief in love, acceptance and freedom than any of the other characters, who've been twisted into pleasure-seeking, cold-blooded hollow parasites by the circles they inhabit and the norms they've internalized. She's beautiful, powerful and magnificent, and yet not idealized as some simplistic lesbian superman- in quieter scenes, especially that sublime allegorical sequence on those icy heights, she looks so very lonely on the other side of the canyon- liberated, yes, but also cut off from so many, not regretting her decision to live as per her nature, but dismayed in that the love she offers is too intense, too different for so many people, Mal included, to accept. This is what makes the ending hit so hard- she isn't sad for herself so much as she's sorry for Mal, because she knows the kind of empty, joyless world she'll be retreating into, and yet she cannot stop her or sweep her off her feet, because Mal has to, in both matters of sex and love, want it. As tragic as her choices are, she respects Mal too much to belittle them, and becomes, by becoming someone who lets her go, far more iconic than she'd be by letting her stay, for she'll forever remain a mysterious liaison, a rapturous dream haunting the dreamer till the end of her days, the goddess on the Other Side.

Mal is also very interesting in her jagged, conflicted attitude towards pretty much everyone she interacts with, herself included. She seems to have internalized a very toxic understanding of sex as some kind of war, where feeling pleasure means that you've somehow lost. She adopts this narrative to vindicate the utter emptiness of her relationship with her boyfriend, since while he's never really satisfied her sexually or emotionally, the fact that she continues to put up with him is her victory, a bizarre kind of self-righteousness wherein she can curse her man for his inadequacies and play the role of the frigid, imperious lover, her heart untouched by love or lust, somehow elevated above the pleasure-seekers in her dissatisfaction, as if she's an ascetic voluntarily forgoing sex rather than someone chronically unfulfilled. The Butch's approach to sex both tempts and terrifies her, because it feels amazing, but she doesn't entirely want to feel good, because she feels like she's humiliated herself by enjoying the act, like she's lost to the Butch, to this subversive figure who she'd much rather denigrate as a deviant sexual misfit who lacks her conventional beauty. The Butch sees sex as mutually satisfying, as more than the sum of its parts, which unsettles Mal further, because the idea that someone could feel happy by simply pleasuring her is straight-up absurd to her, since she sees sex as taking rather than giving, almost a zero-sum game.

She almost manages to get over this, to move past her misery-forged, reductive understanding of relationships toward something legitimate and mutually rewarding with the Butch, but can't make it- the bridge collapses. Interestingly, the Butch seems to be a perfect partner not just in the emotional, but also in the economic sense, a rich, successful woman on par with, if not even better than her boyfriend, but Mal goes from considering the Butch below her to seeing her as too good for her, as if she doesn't deserve that kind of love, as if she'd burn in the sun and needs to crawl back into her seedy nightlife, where no one can fully see how dysfunctional she is. In the second chapter, she's framed in a much more assertive way, almost as strong as the Butch, because she's finally pursuing what she wants, but the malleable, contorted figure is back in the final chapter, as she's once again bent by the pressures of the world, a shying, stumbling, cringing figure who can't bring herself to stand tall. She tries to knock the Butch off-balance by insulting her hopes for a stable relationship, to hit back, because her reaction to pleasure is always to lash out, but there's something pathetic even in her spite. In her hostility, she still isn't half-as-strong as she was when she took the initiative last night to pleasure her partner. This drives in the story's central theme- that strength lies not in norms, blending in, or even hurting others, but in the courage to love and give, as the thrust of true, unconcealed feelings is so much stronger than that of mere anger, denial or gratification. The Butch is thus framed with increasing tenderness as night turns to day, because Mal goes from seeing her as this dangerous, foreign, hulking entity to the largely-gentle person she actually is, and feels doubly envious because the Butch is superior to her in every way, both in having a truly Romantic outlook and in the strength she displays in making her choices. To the Butch, this superiority doesn't matter, because she's happy to share her strength, but to Mal, whose view of relationships is intensely materialistic and competitive, it represents a gap that can't be crossed, hence the symbol of the shattering bridge.

I also love the general use of symbols across the story? Both Mal's minidress in the first chapter and the cardigan in the final one are wrappers, encircling her body, as if she's framing herself as a package with something hidden inside, although neither can really conceal her true feelings- in the first chapter, it fails to hide how dissatisfied she is despite framing herself as desirable, and in the last, it fails to hide the pleasure she felt despite framing herself as unaffected (this in addition to the makeup she wears, which the Butch notes merely spoils and distorts the natural beauty she possesses). The Butch's wardrobe, on the other hand, revolves around extension and exposure, not giving her body a particular shape or hiding her contours, but freely revealing her muscles and highlighting her lines rather than her curves, a second skin and also no skin at all- even the relatively conventional sweater she wears in the last scene doesn't remotely distort her nature and is proudly androgynous, a black more solid than all the washy, uncertain grey-whites of the people she faces, representing her certainty in who she is, all the more striking in the face of Mal's denial.

All in all, I think this series appealed to me a lot because it has a distinctly Romantic air to it, and I love it when any story in general and yuri in particular embraces that. I find queer narratives at their best when they draw upon their individuality, their emotional intensity, and the distinctive experience of being queer, which is not just different from the conventional heteronormative narratives so often seen in media, but also different for each person's own experience of queerness. The story also does an excellent job portraying each character's perspective without being especially partial or unfair to either the Butch or Mal, and acknowledges the constant opposition and suspicion from society that has been an unfortunate part of the queer experience in so many places and regions while still not making this a tale about Gay Angst, but about people, defined by their queerness, but not encapsulated within it, and possessed therefore of compelling follies and virtues. So yeah, I loved this story. It's beautiful, it's profound, and it's different in the best possible way, simply by virtue of being unabashedly itself.

This is one of the best shorter series I've come across on this site? The art is just full-stop exquisite, and the juxtaposition of sculpted bodies uniting polished curves and stony intensity with the seedy atmosphere of dance-club toilet stalls and coiling sheets in dark bedrooms is a vibe that absolutely fucks. Like, I had trouble moving from page to page because I was so incredibly captivated by just how perfectly the artist captured light and shadows dancing across ridges and hollows, condensing an incredible degree of unsaid poignance into every lonely, half-lit pose.

The narrative is also utterly fascinating despite the somewhat hard-to-decipher dialogue, since it shows so much more than it tells. I love how the Butch is framed as a kind of Frankenstein's Monster in the eyes of homophobic characters, a blend of masculine and feminine traits, a new Prometheus who threatens their narrow understanding of identity, pleasure and normalcy, an anomalous existence who distorts every rule of their heteronormative world, and yet in practice, she's so very kind and courteous, more human in her belief in love, acceptance and freedom than any of the other characters, who've been twisted into pleasure-seeking, cold-blooded hollow parasites by the circles they inhabit and the norms they've internalized. She's beautiful, powerful and magnificent, and yet not idealized as some simplistic lesbian superman- in quieter scenes, especially that sublime allegorical sequence on those icy heights, she looks so very lonely on the other side of the canyon- liberated, yes, but also cut off from so many, not regretting her decision to live as per her nature, but dismayed in that the love she offers is too intense, too different for so many people, Mal included, to accept. This is what makes the ending hit so hard- she isn't sad for herself so much as she's sorry for Mal, because she knows the kind of empty, joyless world she'll be retreating into, and yet she cannot stop her or sweep her off her feet, because Mal has to, in both matters of sex and love, want it. As tragic as her choices are, she respects Mal too much to belittle them, and becomes, by becoming someone who lets her go, far more iconic than she'd be by letting her stay, for she'll forever remain a mysterious liaison, a rapturous dream haunting the dreamer till the end of her days, the goddess on the Other Side.

Mal is also very interesting in her jagged, conflicted attitude towards pretty much everyone she interacts with, herself included. She seems to have internalized a very toxic understanding of sex as some kind of war, where feeling pleasure means that you've somehow lost. She adopts this narrative to vindicate the utter emptiness of her relationship with her boyfriend, since while he's never really satisfied her sexually or emotionally, the fact that she continues to put up with him is her victory, a bizarre kind of self-righteousness wherein she can curse her man for his inadequacies and play the role of the frigid, imperious lover, her heart untouched by love or lust, somehow elevated above the pleasure-seekers in her dissatisfaction, as if she's an ascetic voluntarily forgoing sex rather than someone chronically unfulfilled. The Butch's approach to sex both tempts and terrifies her, because it feels amazing, but she doesn't entirely want to feel good, because she feels like she's humiliated herself by enjoying the act, like she's lost to the Butch, to this subversive figure who she'd much rather denigrate as a deviant sexual misfit who lacks her conventional beauty. The Butch sees sex as mutually satisfying, as more than the sum of its parts, which unsettles Mal further, because the idea that someone could feel happy by simply pleasuring her is straight-up absurd to her, since she sees sex as taking rather than giving, almost a zero-sum game.

She almost manages to get over this, to move past her misery-forged, reductive understanding of relationships toward something legitimate and mutually rewarding with the Butch, but can't make it- the bridge collapses. Interestingly, the Butch seems to be a perfect partner not just in the emotional, but also in the economic sense, a rich, successful woman on par with, if not even better than her boyfriend, but Mal goes from considering the Butch below her to seeing her as too good for her, as if she doesn't deserve that kind of love, as if she'd burn in the sun and needs to crawl back into her seedy nightlife, where no one can fully see how dysfunctional she is. In the second chapter, she's framed in a much more assertive way, almost as strong as the Butch, because she's finally pursuing what she wants, but the malleable, contorted figure is back in the final chapter, as she's once again bent by the pressures of the world, a shying, stumbling, cringing figure who can't bring herself to stand tall. She tries to knock the Butch off-balance by insulting her hopes for a stable relationship, to hit back, because her reaction to pleasure is always to lash out, but there's something pathetic even in her spite. In her hostility, she still isn't half-as-strong as she was when she took the initiative last night to pleasure her partner. This drives in the story's central theme- that strength lies not in norms, blending in, or even hurting others, but in the courage to love and give, as the thrust of true, unconcealed feelings is so much stronger than that of mere anger, denial or gratification. The Butch is thus framed with increasing tenderness as night turns to day, because Mal goes from seeing her as this dangerous, foreign, hulking entity to the largely-gentle person she actually is, and feels doubly envious because the Butch is superior to her in every way, both in having a truly Romantic outlook and in the strength she displays in making her choices. To the Butch, this superiority doesn't matter, because she's happy to share her strength, but to Mal, whose view of relationships is intensely materialistic and competitive, it represents a gap that can't be crossed, hence the symbol of the shattering bridge.

I also love the general use of symbols across the story? Both Mal's minidress in the first chapter and the cardigan in the final one are wrappers, encircling her body, as if she's framing herself as a package with something hidden inside, although neither can really conceal her true feelings- in the first chapter, it fails to hide how dissatisfied she is despite framing herself as desirable, and in the last, it fails to hide the pleasure she felt despite framing herself as unaffected (this in addition to the makeup she wears, which the Butch notes merely spoils and distorts the natural beauty she possesses). The Butch's wardrobe, on the other hand, revolves around extension and exposure, not giving her body a particular shape or hiding her contours, but freely revealing her muscles and highlighting her lines rather than her curves, a second skin and also no skin at all- even the relatively conventional sweater she wears in the last scene doesn't remotely distort her nature and is proudly androgynous, a black more solid than all the washy, uncertain grey-whites of the people she faces, representing her certainty in who she is, all the more striking in the face of Mal's denial.

All in all, I think this series appealed to me a lot because it has a distinctly Romantic air to it, and I love it when any story in general and yuri in particular embraces that. I find queer narratives at their best when they draw upon their individuality, their emotional intensity, and the distinctive experience of being queer, which is not just different from the conventional heteronormative narratives so often seen in media, but also different for each person's own experience of queerness. The story also does an excellent job portraying each character's perspective without being especially partial or unfair to either the Butch or Mal, and acknowledges the constant opposition and suspicion from society that has been an unfortunate part of the queer experience in so many places and regions while still not making this a tale about Gay Angst, but about people, defined by their queerness, but not encapsulated within it, and possessed therefore of compelling follies and virtues. So yeah, I loved this story. It's beautiful, it's profound, and it's different in the best possible way, simply by virtue of being unabashedly itself.

I fucking love your analysis, and i really agree with you with queer narratives have something that tends to give them more depth that is very interesting.
i love this mini comic

Fantastic story, really wish there was more