Forum › Mirage discussion

Setsuko2
joined Jan 20, 2014

that was such a satisfying end lol

Don't%20forget%20the%20best%20girl
joined Jul 22, 2018

don't like angst but i have to agree the ending is satisfying

35
joined Dec 24, 2019

good for her!

President%20and%20new%20hire%20profile%20pic%202
joined Sep 27, 2017

The angst is honestly pretty realistic. Kids are often shitty to each other, and adults to each other as well. In my experience at least, with situations like what she was dealing with it's unfortunately not uncommon for people to try making what they're doing seem harmless, and then you start to feel like you're the problem, not them. It's a very bad place to be, especially when those people want to make up, and you have to ask your self "is it better being alone"?

Someroughclipping
joined Aug 28, 2019

A happy end in a story with an aaaaangst tag? 404 error

Book%20and%20cloakhbq1
joined Aug 1, 2011

The portrayal of kids being terrible and the general gas-lighting, in the beginning, was pretty good, but the ending felt too abrupt. She decided not to accept their halfhearted apology and she got over her infatuation with the one girl, but that felt like it was only the start of conclusion, not the end. It's not like she doesn't have to deal with them any more and she hasn't gained any actual friends or really found a way to deal with her loneliness.

Ultimately, I would have liked at least one more chapter, so we could have gotten a bit more of her character arc, or at least some idea of how everyone else reacted to her rejection.

9286787ab50153acb27cd03b385edb3d949d719e0b569799723637ee189d1f4b_1-1
joined Aug 14, 2020

She got her happy ending. Good for her. <3

Yuriloveisbestlove
37cdda916e06996c5273d79dec6e6f7d%20(1)
joined Feb 15, 2019

Well alls well that ends well. Glad she didn't forgive those "friends", even more glad she got a happy ending.

joined Sep 6, 2018

A good start for a new artist featured on this website.

President%20and%20new%20hire%20profile%20pic%202
joined Sep 27, 2017

The portrayal of kids being terrible and the general gas-lighting, in the beginning, was pretty good, but the ending felt too abrupt. She decided not to accept their halfhearted apology and she got over her infatuation with the one girl, but that felt like it was only the start of conclusion, not the end. It's not like she doesn't have to deal with them any more and she hasn't gained any actual friends or really found a way to deal with her loneliness.

Ultimately, I would have liked at least one more chapter, so we could have gotten a bit more of her character arc, or at least some idea of how everyone else reacted to her rejection.

I think the point was that we can take a pretty accurate educated guess. The rest of her time at the school was probably rough and lonely, some more bullying because she decided to go against the grain and stand up for her self. The story jumped forward to say, well she made it through the shitty times and found happiness afterwards. I think the author maybe didn't want to dwell on the bad times even more, instead they wanted to say, hey growing up can be pretty rough and lonely, but you'll get through those times.

last edited at Nov 2, 2020 1:23AM

Gt00pn-odpc
joined Sep 30, 2017

Yes! Fuck your apology!

joined Aug 21, 2017

The portrayal of kids being terrible and the general gas-lighting, in the beginning, was pretty good, but the ending felt too abrupt. She decided not to accept their halfhearted apology and she got over her infatuation with the one girl, but that felt like it was only the start of conclusion, not the end. It's not like she doesn't have to deal with them any more and she hasn't gained any actual friends or really found a way to deal with her loneliness.

Ultimately, I would have liked at least one more chapter, so we could have gotten a bit more of her character arc, or at least some idea of how everyone else reacted to her rejection.

I think the point was that we can take a pretty accurate educated guess. The rest of her time at the school was probably rough and lonely, some more bullying because she decided to go against the grain and stand up for her self. The story jumped forward to say, well she made it through the shitty times and found happiness afterwards. I think the author maybe didn't want to dwell on the bad times even more, instead they wanted to say, hey growing up can be pretty rough and lonely, but you'll get through those times.

Yeah, I thought it was more about "getting over your first love" than everything that comes after it.

46-75
joined Jun 25, 2019

Ngl, the fact that it's the end took me by surprise. I was like "End ? Wdym End ? Is that all ?". Don'tgetme wrong, i like the fact that she didn't take the apologize but you can't tell me she got a peaceful highschool life after that.And as cute as the ending is, it feel a bit random, like the author didn't assume the whole angst and the ending and put an happy ending.

F0c1c7ea6c0d24b021d03256f2c658f6
joined Oct 9, 2019

YES!! SHE DON'T DESERVE THEM ANYWAYS

joined Jan 3, 2020

This story almost feels like it was literally ripped from my life. It's pretty eerie how close parts of it are. It definitely captures the "friends when we need to copy your homework or when we can make fun of you" friendships that typified almost all of my relationships until college. MC dresses almost identically to me as well, though I liked button-up shirts better for some reason.

Unlike the MC though, I didn't really have any strong crushes in school. Sort of an autistic thing mostly, but I never look anyone in the eye and never glance at anyone's sexual characteristics (I have never 'checked somebody out' before). Because I rarely enjoyed having friends and never made any proper contact with others, it was easy to completely avoid romance/sex. Though people did accuse me often of being a homosexual when I would always dodge their questions about who I liked, but it was easy to just deny that.

Ngl, the fact that it's the end took me by surprise. I was like "End ? Wdym End ? Is that all ?". Don'tgetme wrong, i like the fact that she didn't take the apologize but you can't tell me she got a peaceful highschool life after that.And as cute as the ending is, it feel a bit random, like the author didn't assume the whole angst and the ending and put an happy ending.

No, her high school life was probably awful, since I bet rejecting their apology made them hate her.

She should have navigated it more diplomatically. Accept their apology on the surface and to their faces but pull back from the friendships. Dodge questions, don't commit to any events in the future, and otherwise avoid them. If they ask if anything is wrong, insist everything is fine and make up an excuse.

That's what I would do (and did).

Lewdssss
joined Mar 23, 2019

OOF'ers

Fishy
joined Oct 19, 2020

The whole story was more or less about how an image of someone changes when you get to know them. From being afraid that she will lose her if she confesses, to letting her go and disappear from her heart, like an illusion it always was. From that perspective, I think it did an ok'ish job at what it aimed for but seems incomplete.

There seem to be a lot of shots of the white-haired girl looking kinda conflicted about the treatment Lyu Geyang is getting from the rest of the group, but she doesn't stand up to them. She carries her own bag in ch.1 and is not shown making fun of her in class or make her run errands, is always just shown in the background of bullying, sorta as a spectator. It feels like her wanting to get closer might have been genuine but was torpedoed by the rest of the clique. Instead of 3.5 being a snippet of the future I would rather see the author explore that part if all of the above was intentional.

If it wasn't intentional then the author should work on that, because it really feels like there is more to be told there.

last edited at Nov 2, 2020 5:59AM

Untitled-1
joined Nov 14, 2016

This was good, such a wholesome extra chapter to compensate for all the bullying.

Vamoaver
joined Apr 16, 2013

the art was neat

UranusAndNeptuneAreJustCousins
joined Sep 6, 2015

There seem to be a lot of shots of the white-haired girl looking kinda conflicted about the treatment Lyu Geyang is getting from the rest of the group, but she doesn't stand up to them. She carries her own bag in ch.1 and is not shown making fun of her in class or make her run errands, is always just shown in the background of bullying, sorta as a spectator. It feels like her wanting to get closer might have been genuine but was torpedoed by the rest of the clique. Instead of 3.5 being a snippet of the future I would rather see the author explore that part if all of the above was intentional.

If it wasn't intentional then the author should work on that, because it really feels like there is more to be told there.

Yeah, I noticed that too. Even during the final argument that broke the camel's back, she was just standing in the background with an obviously conflicted look on her face. So the ending felt somewhat incomplete, I genuinely expected to see more about her.

And this actually plays into another problem I have with this. If you cut out the first chapter, you would have a hard time figuring out she was crushing on Chen Yue. This started out as blatant romantic angst, Liu Geyang was tormented by her feelings not only because of her low self-esteem, but also because she fell for another girl, which seemed to outright double her insecurities.

She then settled on thinking that being friends (specifically with Chen Yue) would be "more normal" and would at least allow her to spend time with the girl, which seems like pretty standard "I will take any crumbs I can get" line of reasoning when an outright romance seems impossible.

But this gets pushed one step further into wanting more friends in general, and the rest of the story from then on focuses on that aspect.

The central premise that the first chapter introduced was Liu Geyang's angsty crush on Chen Yue, it was not her general lack of friends and loneliness, but the latter ideas end up as the focus of the last two thirds of the story, with the romantic aspect never really brought up again.

You can still glimpse that she felt more than just friendly attachment for Chen Yue purely from the focus of some of the panels, but after spending literally the whole first chapter setting these feelings up in copious detail, mere glimpses seem somewhat inadequate.

I still overall liked the story, it depicted both the bullying and Liu Geyang's reactions and thoughts in a very realistic light, and the rejection of the apology felt immensely satisfying. But narratively speaking, I feel it could have been better structured. As it is, the first chapter sets the central premise, but that central premise goes literally nowhere (in the sense that it is never again brought up) and the story shifts its focus on other themes.

Yeecon
joined Feb 6, 2013

I liked this a lot! Toxic people have their own struggles, but never put yourself in a negative position just to make anyone happy. Compromise is important, but there's a huge difference between that and being used and manipulated, and even then compromise only works if everyone is doing it.

I hope we see more works tackling these sorts of topics in a similarly realistic manner and not ending in utter despair (I know that does happen far too often, but all endings can be realistic in their own ways) as sometimes things do just sort of end and you hoepfully learn and grow from it. Glad Geyang had a happy ending in the long run! ♡

joined Nov 2, 2020

I'm glad she didn't forgive them. It was all a mirage. The girl she had a crush on was never real. She did well to escape that toxic "friendship". Now she can find true friendship and happiness.

Phone
joined Oct 7, 2017

I'm glad things turned out well for her, but it needed a bit more to really come together as a satisfying conclusion to me. That new girlfriend is kind of out of nowhere, and there wasn't enough time to really get invested in their relationship, nothing to tie back to the rest of the story in any way.

joined Dec 3, 2018

A story about moving past unrequited love and toxic relationships that didn't take 30 chapters to tell? Commendable.

10807fb9dea2e14573bdced1ea4c45e9
joined Aug 19, 2019

Hell yeah! fuck those bitches!

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