My read on Honoka has always been that she is obviously straight.

What's obvious to one person can seem like projection based on limited personal experience to others.

Ahhhh. My heart just stopped! Two of my faved couples have chapters again!!!

Ok, I couldn't resist reading the rest of your post after I lowered the blast shields. :-)

Except, at that point they literally just became friends and Honoka still has all sorts of weird misunderstanding about Eli and her intentions. So at this point they're only friends and she is obsessed with yaoi so it makes sense she'd be more into her gay hosts than her. Also you're forgetting Honoka had very bad experiences with other people and is very closed off. She's classic loner mangaka otaku with difficulty to express herself. Despite being worried about Eli's reaction and trying to decline her invitation at first, after seeing her disappointment, she feels bad about it and forces herself to come anyway.

Ok well perhaps you and I have different experiences of sexual attraction. At the risk of validating another male/female trope (which I can see you're averse to) I don't have to be friends with someone to find them sexually attractive. Sure, it helps - in fact the best kind of sexual attraction is one augmented with knowledge of a person. But let's not kid ourselves about the general nature of sexual attraction - a lot of it is physical. And involuntary.

That's probably the most unbelievable statement I have ever heard about the genre. How many yuri manga have you read? Vast majority of them are wish fulfillment stories about all girls high schools where entire main cast, or hell even supporting cast, is gay. I have never saw any author actually giving 2 fucks about "straight representation" or how "unrealistic everyone being gay is". The fact everyone is gay and you don't need to worry character will get rejected, because other girl is straight is like the main point of those stories. Are you seriously arguing that in story that we literally have like 15 couples and is classic example of "all girls all gay high school" author suddenly started caring about "realism" and decided to make 1 straight? To make it what? More realistic?????

Perhaps more sophisticated? More interesting? I'm not trying to be snobbish, but would you be opposed to that? There are innumerable ships in this story - doesn't the perceived inevitability of them all get a bit tiresome?

Men shy away from intimate affection and feel the need to preface everything with "no homo", not because we're fundamentally different, but because of social pressure and our culture.

Probably, mostly. Can't help but notice you seem confident in your (general) understanding of men. :-) That's fine. I do it too.

There's no biological difference between men and women in terms of sexuality and behavior. Everything is result of society and individuals.

Ok, this is a bit off-topic, but that's fine.

Look, I'm progressive, but we can't wishcast our priciples into pronouncements about empirical reality. And we don't need to. The principles of individuality tell me, for example, that I don't have to care about the fact that, say, girls on average kick the living shit out of boys in measures of verbal acumen. It doesn't say anything about me, because I'm an individual, there is variation in any population, I know who I am, and I expect to be judged on that basis.

So we don't have to run away from what we learn about general differences in groups - in particular, differences between men and women. Gender is the one area where many of the things we traditionally think of as stereotypes are actually based in truth. Again, there is variation in any population, so these aren't categorical differences.

Regardless, we live in a civilized society where our survival no longer depends on us having to all conform to the roles evolution designed us for. But that doesn't mean the traits we established in order to make us suited to those roles have disappeared. Evolution doesn't just select us for physical characteristics. There isn't an animal anywhere close to humans where males and females don't exhibit dramatically different behaviors. And science has, in fact, shown plenty of general differences in how we learn, think, and behave.

And if there's one area where we should be least surprised that we differ, it's in sexuality and sexual desire - a primal trait that is the engine of reproduction and evolution. One very interesting scientific study a few years ago (conducted by women) studied our physiological responses to sexual stimuli, and revealed differences that, at the very least, are deeply rooted and entirely unconscious. It's not anything threatening to social status, but there were unquestionable differences between men and women. Men were far more consistent than women, so it's definitely harder to make generalizations about what turns women on. But the differences were real.

The only reason women experiment more, especially in teenage years, is because they're allowed to. Unlike men, they're not scrutinize and ridiculed for every single touch or hug. They're not conditioned to control themselves and be careful what they say and do. They're free to be more open about their feelings and express them. You can be lesbian without losing your femininity. Being gay means your masculinity will be questioned 24/7.

But that's also why after graduating majority of women still end up marrying guys and having kids. Because will society allows women to "experiment" in high school, being lesbian after that is weird and not what society expects from them. Their time when being lesbian is "allowed" ends. That's why women "appear to be" more fluid. They simply have more time and options to express their sexuality, before they're also forced to conform to social expectation and pressure and pick w/e they accept it or not. Many married "straight" women were never straight to begin with.

All very true things which no doubt explain a lot.

The short is that I can't believe you're using those harmful stereotypes and cultural limitations as your evidence that they're not really attracted to each other.

If you're talking about my remark about female fluidity, that was in support of Honoka being possibly into Eli. As for the idea that girls are more comfortable expressing affection, I don't see you denying that it's true - you're simply arguing over the reason for it. Which, for our purposes, is irrelevant. Again, my initial post said nothing about nature vs nurture - because it doesn't matter.

But those were only reasons not to assume that shows of affection and "I love you" were necessarily indicative of sexual attraction. The main reason I'm not convinced Honoka is sexually attracted to Eli is that I don't see evidence of the sexual part of it. I suppose if you want to draw a distinction between "sexual" and "romantic", well, perhaps, but that might be something along the lines of the very intimate platonic friendship I'm proposing.

And I never denied that Eli is all into Honoka.

Nonetheless, I'm far more convinced of the relationship between Kanae and Haruka, despite them never having uttered the phrase "I love you", than I am for Honoka and Eli. Actions speak louder than words.

I get that you got disappointed you didn't get what you expected and so it forever tainted your experience with that couple. I totally understand you, I ruined many mangas for myself, because they didn't go the way I expected them to go or characters didn't behave the way I expected them too. That being said, I'm confused why your ultimate proof that they're totally not in love with each other is 1 scene when they literally just became friends. Sure, she didn't show much reaction there, w/e that was mistake on authors part of w/e there was other reason for it, but after that we got plenty of very cute moments between them, clearly showing their attraction to one another, yet you never bring any of them

Yes!! There have been many cute moments indeed. I'm not denying that. Would it be terrible if that didn't involve sex?

Eli is clearly interested in Honoka since the get go, flirt with her all the time and tells her she loves her, which I don't need to link, because like, c'mon, but to say Honoka doesn't show any interest either is just either being purposefully disingenuous or you got so angry about that 1 lack of reaction from seeing Eli in skimpy cloths, you're now dedicated contrarian just to spite them...

Again, I'm not angry. Disappointed, but I'm willing to accept it for what it is - and if that's platonic, I'm ok with it. If not, that's great too!

Honoka gives me huge tsundere vibes. She totes love Eli at this point, she was just afraid to admit it because of her past experience. Them loving each other is so blatantly obvious, I can't believe you found their mutual confession unbelievable. Like, there's plenty enough of series where nothing is openly confirmed, but there's clear subtext, but people insist "they're straight", "there's nothing homosexual about it" as long there's even 1 piece of evidence to doubt it, so making any definite statements about those couples is huge pain in the ass, because there will be always that 1 person who just won't shut up how they're not confirmed couple, so to think we'd actually have a discussion questioning a freaking mutual confession on fucking yuri focused forum, I'm more than shocked. I don't know you, so maybe it's just this 1 instant, but based on your 3 posts I read here, I wouldn't be surprised if you were one of those people.

Honoka has definitely been pulled out of her shell by Eli. Which is very heartwarming. I never said I found the confession "unbelievable", as if I thought it was fake. It's just that "I love you" has a lot of different meanings.

I understand your point, but you're forgetting sexual attraction is more complicated than that. It manifest differently in different people. Some people have very strong reactions while other have much more control over their body and/or it simply isn't as obvious. Also you fail to take into account that Honoka could be asexual or she only reacts to people she actually bonded with and have stronger connection or, you know, because she was ostracized and made fun of, her attraction to other people simply atrophied and so it's harder for her to feel aroused in general. It can happen especially when you stop interacting with 3d world and mostly focus on 2d. Case in point, you're simply projecting your idea of how a straight girl should act and react in this situation and draw assumptions from there.

Well if she's asexual, then she's definitely not sexually attracted to her - although I imagine that by "asexual" you perhaps mean something more like demi-sexual in that she can only fall in love or experience sexual/romantic attraction with someone after getting to know them. And the problem with that is that Honoka clearly demonstrates arousal at the idea of sex between males.

But of course, this is a manga. The author can make whatever he wants happen. Yet, notice the complete lack of blushing, flustering, sweating, heart-thumping, or any of the other indicators Torajirou typically uses to indicate repressed sexual arousal. This is what convinced me he wanted this to be more of a "suggestively ecchi close friends" pairing than a "seriously potentially romantic pairing".

And again, there's plenty of explanations one could give why it is this way here. But hell, maybe author actually did do it on purpose, because they had different plans for Honoka at this point. Maybe you are even right and at that point, they intended her to be just a straight fanservice girl or whatever. Whatever it is that they planned at that point is clearly no longer relevant, because they decided to change it and take that character into another direction, but for some reason you're not taking all the new evidence into consideration, making me suspicious you have some kind of different motive for it.

I have no motive, other than to talk about a romantic relation in a manga. I only highlighted that inital post because it best illustrates my point. But I have followed their relationship - I've read every episode of this manga. I always pay particular attention to how each person reacts, and I've been looking for Honoka to demonstrate something that crosses that line between non-sexual love and the kind we're all thinking about. Yet at every point, Honoka holds back and demonstrates what to me seems to fall short of sexual attraction - cute and heartwarming as it is.

I will say the one time that I thought she did show a possible sign was when she made a reference to Eli's hips. But that was only once, somewhat ambiguous, and not enough to overcome what came before.

But if you're convinced that the "I love you" was a full-on romantic confession, great! I hope you're right. I wish I could share your joy, but I can't make myself believe something just because I want it to be true, or because everyone is accusing me of being willfully blind. If I was that easily influenced I'd believe in God.

So we'll see. But I wouldn't be shocked to see Honoka claim in a later episode that she didn't mean it that way (which of course, will draw skepticism that she's simply in denial, in order to keep the "ship" afloat ...).

I'm confused how confirming ship would destroy ship. Like it's not like there are other characters you can ship them with, so it's not like making them a couple in this case would be detriment to series in any way, unless you're here just for "will they/won't they" dynamic, which is just not sustainable after certain point. And it's pretty clear they're the official paring from the start, so not like author is worried to lose some readers that ship them differently.

I'm saying if Honoka claims in a later episode that she didn't mean "I love you" in that way, it could potentially destroy the ship, at least as most people want it to be.

And honestly if they really could do the whole "mutually confessing love to each other" and then author could still take it back, then we really live in the worst timeline and homosexual relationships will never be allowed ever, because after that, nothing will ever matter and you can simply bs your way out from any homosexual couple to ever exist in fiction.

Whoa, OK, I think you're going way overboard here. I'm suggesting that what you see as a "confession" may not actually be a confession in the sense you're imagining, and you're taking this as some sort of attack on having homosexual characters in manga? Have you never read a story where you were misled into thinking one thing, only to have another reality revealed, or teased into believing something is more significant than it is? Hell, Yumimi does it to poor Nononon all the time!

I think we're letting our perviness get the best of us when we project romantic, sexual feelings onto something quite possibly deeper and more substantial.

Ok that statement quite genuinely confuses me. You're the one that started with projecting your own perviness onto how Honoka should react to sexy Eli trying to arouse her, so where that "we" came from. Nobody but you project anything.

Waaaiiit - saying that if sexual attraction exists, sexy Eli should elicit a reaction from Honoka ... is somehow projecting my perviness? That's just an empirical observation based on how sexual attraction works. I'm saying that assuming sexual attraction must arise because two girls are put together in an ecchi situation is generally a pervy expectation that males have - and a trope that many people, particularly (in my experience) straight women, find gratuitous and tiresome.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not denying my perviness - I'm just aware of it leading me to be biased about things.

Also are you implying that romantic feelings aren't "deeper and substantial"???? Are you actually arguing friendship is deeper than love? Just in case, I think they're both very deep, but also very different feelings, so they're around equal, but most people would say love is the deeper of two. Are you like seriously the contrarian here?

I think a very intimate platonic friendship can possibly be deeper and more substantial. It is certainly more durable. That's the problem with romantic feelings. They fade. I know because I've been in several long term relationships. Certainly my own flaws have something to do with it. But familiarity always creeps in, and the wonderful newness of falling in love is a hard thing to face never feeling again.

I would be interested to know if any of the people disagreeing with me are gay/bisexual women.

And I fail to see how that's relevant to anything. Love and attraction is the same no matter who it is. Only difference is individual. It's not like lesbians experience love different than straight men or something.

As I've noted above, there are real generalizable differences between men and women, with regard to sex and sexuality. Any couples therapist or sex psychologist will tell you this. They aren't absolute rules, but they are accurate often enough to be reliable. The idea that there aren't comes from how people distort progressive principles into unnecessary expectations about empirical facts.

To put it another way, everyone is an individual, but it's fair to assume that a woman likely understands women (in general) better than I do.

Not to discredit anyone ad hominem, but I'm curious whether an L/B would think this idea of lesbian sexual desire going from zero-to-girlfriend like this is realistic.

Well, love at first sight is a thing and very common in all the movies and stories (too common, if you ask me), so it's quite possible. And yes, it happens all the time in yuri stories as well. Again, how many did you actually read? Also it again feels like you're skipping a lot of evidence and only focus on that first major encounter, because Honoka had plenty of time to grow to like Eli, so it's nowhere near close to from zero to girlfriend, but somehow you keep ignoring that.

Like I said, I've read a lot - and I've come to wonder if this one might be taking a stab at something more complex. Maybe not. But as I've addressed previously, I'm not ignoring anything. I just don't have time to be analyzing every single episode (EDIT: By that I mean here on this thread, for the benefit of this argument; as I've said, I've read them all myself.) Honoka is definitely warming to Eli, no question. I just think it might be a different kind of "warming".

Or maybe some straight women on whether or not Honoka's behavior would be consistent with how they might react to having a close friend who they suspect wouldn't mind an experimental dalliance with them (I'm guessing there aren't many straight women here).

Honestly, your insistence everyone is exactly the same and there's no meaningful difference between people, their experience and personality is starting to be insulting. Also, just to remind you, it's fiction so even if author tries to keep characters consistence etc. it doesn't mean you can like perfectly diagnose someone behavior and figure out what they really felt. It's not like author is sitting down with biology textbooks and psychological studies, making sure every character's physiological and psychological behavior is exactly in line with what you'd expect from them.

I never said that everyone is exactly the same. I've merely stated that there are generalizable differences, and it doesn't matter if you or I or anyone finds them insulting.

And I believe I clearly acknowledged that it's fiction and the author can do what he wants.

last edited at Jul 13, 2022 4:37AM

The notion that there could be too many queer people to be “realistic” is so funny to me. In my experience, us queers subconsciously gravitate towards each other since the “doesn’t quite fit into heteronormativity” vibes seem to naturally attract similar people. In fact, 3 of my friends in high school also turned out to be trans on top of being gay.

We find each other lol

Yes, that is one argument in favor of the realism of it. Like attracts like, regardless of whether we're talking about being gay. However, nowadays this happens far more readily since we are in the era of people being open about homosexuality. Talk to older gay people and you'lI likely find that it was a much lonelier experience in the past.

Nowadays, being "queer" is actually seen as kind of cool in American culture, especially among younger people. Despite what manga tells you, that is not generally true in Japan.

But the biggest reason I say it's unrealistic is that only a certain percentage of the population is gay (which is a more restrictive group than "doesn't quite fit into heteronormativity"). That percentage is growing, but it's almost entirely due to more people identifying as bisexual. So anyone who does care about realism (not saying anyone should) shouldn't be triggered by the idea of some characters being bisexual (I'm not directing this at you - someone else here seems to have a problem with it).

My read on Honoka has always been that she is obviously straight.

What's obvious to one person can seem like projection based on limited personal experience to others.

And what's more, that can work in both directions!

Oh, also, regarding the “why wasn’t Honoka drooling over Eli’s outfit” line of discussion, I think it’s worth bringing up demisexuality and similar ace spectrum attraction. There are people out there who only experience physical attraction after forming an emotional bond with them. I don’t think that Honoka’s being written with that term specifically in mind, but I don’t think her behavior is somehow inconsistent with being into women either.

Yeah, I considered that (although I'm not familiar with "ace spectrum attraction"), but she shows clear signs of sexual attraction to males. I didn't think "demi-sexuality" was gender specific like that - although it's probably a rare enough thing that it's not well studied.

Anyway, it's just a manga. It doesn't have to be realistic. I was only suggesting it as a possibility for why this ship might not lead to the same inevitable conclusion as everyone else's. Simply wanting to do something different would suffice.

Not like you care and will only read this post someday in the future when you'll decided to check if there's anything of value there, but will more likely just forgot about it

Well.

And then you comment about something I wrote at the end of my post, which means that either you did read it or that you only skimmed it, which in both cases only makes me even less interested in continuing this farce.

No, I actually did stop at that point. It's just hard not to see what's at the very end when you're cutting it out of the reply.

Except I'm not angry and I didn't even insult you once. I was actually being incredibly civil and gave you the benefit of the doubt. Only thing I ever criticized was ideas and opinions you expressed. Things I thought we were discussing, so I'm baffled you took it so personally. About language I used, have you never heard of emphasize or exaggeration? In moments like this I always blame internet, because it's much harder to tell the difference between tone and mood in written speech compare to spoken one, when not using emoticons and such. But seriously. That's enough to offend you? Ignoring the fact that compare to total amount of words used, it's not even 5% of my entire post, you really shouldn't use internet then, if you're that prude.

Ok look, disagree with me all you want, but don't bullshit me. Unless you're going to tell me you don't know the meaning of "infuriate" (your word), don't pretend you weren't angry. You accused me of possibly having an ulterior motive (and we both know what you meant by that) so don't say you "gave me the benefit of the doubt". And I'm well aware of what constitutes emphasis and exaggeration - and the difference between that and someone who is pissed off.

I'm not a prude - trust me. I've had to learn to tone down my language a lot to communicate online, so if you want to get into a nasty back and forth with me, we might both end up getting banned from this site if you're as bad as you claim to be.

But I don't want that, which was why I was trying to calm things down. Maybe that was a mistake. It's not so much that I was offended, but I was, as I said, "taken aback". You were clearly upset (something which I wasn't expecting) and given that, you did a decent job, in many places, of not letting it slip out. It was much better in the part that I read later on - I probably should have read further before responding. But don't tell me it wasn't there, because you explicitly said it.

You said that you debate with alt-right etc. I thought it was their favorite tactic to complain about presentation and that it doesn't matter if what you're saying doesn't make any sense as long as you're saying it in a way that looks better than opposition. I didn't expect "but you didn't say it calmly enough" from you of all people.

Again, I was worried that the conversation would spin out of control and turn into a flame war. That's the biggest thing I've learned to avoid when conversing with the alt-right - or anyone.

And it's beside the point, as I was calm, just used some harder words, because I felt like they expressed my points better., but I'm actually not native, so cursing comes more natural to me in english than my native language, because of level of separation, so I tend to use them more when using english.

Well then here's a tip from a native English speaker. Cursing is common in America. That's because we're often angry with each other. It's less common in England and Canada. That's because they abhor being angry at each other.

The point is, peppering your speech with "fucking" and "shit" isn't for emphasis. Unless you're trying to emphasize that you're irritated, exasperated, and angry. And it certainly doesn't indicate "calm". I'm guessing the "cutthroat aggressive" version of you uses them a lot more frequently.

I was actually in very shitty mood, but despite that I decided to take the high road, even though you'd be perfect place to vent some of my frustration

Which is my point. It was obvious you were in a shitty mood. Which is fine - just be honest about it. I didn't want to have a "shitty mood" discussion.

brooo I don't think honoka has told eli she loves her back before this right? we love to see it

So do I! It was sweet.

also this dude really sitting here saying shes 100% straight based on the fact that his straight-self said so okay bro lmfao

Standpoint epistemology is a weak argument form. Bro.

You know you could just have edit your first post instead of posting 6 time in a row

You know you could just have edit your first post instead of posting 6 time in a row

Is that appropriate etiquette when responding to different people?

yes

I'm very used to writing walls of text that then nobody reads/replies to and honestly at this point I barely bother to post, because it feels like a waste of time, so I forgot to thank you in my previous post for proving to me yet again, that it indeed is just a waste of time. I hope you'll appreciate experiencing for yourself how it feels.

Talking only for the record I'd like to state I've read all of Eromancer's posts as well as yours and everyone else's, and I found the debate very interesting. I only wish civility would be a greater concern for all involved.

I'm very used to writing walls of text that then nobody reads/replies to and honestly at this point I barely bother to post, because it feels like a waste of time, so I forgot to thank you in my previous post for proving to me yet again, that it indeed is just a waste of time. I hope you'll appreciate experiencing for yourself how it feels.

Talking only for the record I'd like to state I've read all of Eromancer's posts as well as yours and everyone else's, and I found the debate very interesting. I only wish civility would be a greater concern for all involved.

Agreed, very interesting conversations going on here, but then it turned to insults and low blows and it became less about the manga and more about being mean.

I am glad that a ten-year-old manga is getting such interesting discussions, though, and that people are still into the series.

I do want to speak to some of the certain points Eromancer is bringing up with a few quotes:

Nowadays, being "queer" is actually seen as kind of cool in American culture, especially among younger people. Despite what manga tells you, that is not generally true in Japan.

But the biggest reason I say it's unrealistic is that only a certain percentage of the population is gay (which is a more restrictive group than "doesn't quite fit into heteronormativity"). That percentage is growing, but it's almost entirely due to more people identifying as bisexual. So anyone who does care about realism (not saying anyone should) shouldn't be triggered by the idea of some characters being bisexual (I'm not directing this at you - someone else here seems to have a problem with it).

In this manga, I can count how many male characters there are on one hand. This happens a lot in yuri manga, where guys don't exist. This obviously isn't realistic. People can make unrealistic things and have an idealistic view of the world.

Also, I want a source for the increase in percentage for more people identifying as bisexual.

And, while manga should not and should never be taken as gospel for what happens in Japan, I think most people know that Queer people aren't accepted there. It sounds very condescending with how you worded it.

They don't shy away from intimate affection in the way men do - they can say "I love you" without having to suffix it with something like ", man ..." in order to make it clear that it's platonic. Granted, there is some scientific evidence that female sexuality is a bit more fluid (the old "college lesbian" trope) than for males, so a sexual thing here could still be somewhat plausible.

This depends largely on the people.

With my female friendships, I'm not a very touchy feely person. With someone I'm interested in, I am.
I would never say, "I love you," to one of my friends in the way Eli and Honoka do, though I do say, "I love you," to my immediate family members.

I don't like touching my female friends.

Women aren't a hive mind.

Well if she's asexual, then she's definitely not sexually attracted to her - although I imagine that by "asexual" you perhaps mean something more like demi-sexual in that she can only fall in love or experience sexual/romantic attraction with someone after getting to know them. And the problem with that is that Honoka clearly demonstrates arousal at the idea of sex between males.

This does not matter. People can be bisexual, which I think you mentioned. (I am not running on very many hours of sleep here. Please excuse the formatting if I messed up the quotes).

This seems to be a sticking point for many, that Honoka writes and is sexually attracted to male on male romance.
Sexuality is fluid.

Also, asexual people can fall in love and get into relationships with other people. Asexuality is on a spectrum.

That, and demisexuality. People can be bisexual and demisexual. So, Honoka could not have liked Eli that way when she was wearing a skimpy outfit and was still bisexual or a lesbian.

That, and lesbians can be interested and drool at BL relationships too. My friend is a lesbian and she loves reading BL manga and never reads yuri manga. She has a girlfriend.

Plus, it's also nice seeing gay people in real life. Representation. I mean, I would be excited seeing other gay people in real life. I think Honoka is the same way.

Personally, though, I think both Eli and Honoka are bisexual.

Also, dude, if someone is having a conversation with you on the Internet -I mean it's the Internet, so it's whatever- you should read all of it before quoting stuff.

last edited at Jul 13, 2022 1:46PM

While we’re talking about the BL, I do want to say that I love its inclusion. Something I like about the presence of BL in this series is that not only are the different girls’ relationships to BL varied in nuanced ways, but we also get to see how divorced the BL is from the actual gay couple in the story.

It’s not to say that BL never represents actual queer men, but it’s function is often not geared toward that in the first place. I know a lot of trans-mascs and queer women who’ve used BL as a kind safe experimentation space for figuring things out about themselves.

There’s also a lot to be said for how BL reflects cultural attitudes about the interplay between masculinity and social power. I think boiling it down to “dude hot, so two dudes is more hot” dismisses a lot of rich context involved in the creation and consumption of the genre.

Now, I’m a trans woman, so I don’t want to speak over any queer men or afab people who would have a more authentic perspective, so please tell me if I’m off base here

last edited at Jul 13, 2022 2:03PM

Which is my point. It was obvious you were in a shitty mood. Which is fine - just be honest about it. I didn't want to have a "shitty mood" discussion.

I was considering whatever or not I should specify that I only mean when I was replying to your second post, but for some unyurily reason I figured you'll get it. No clue why, since all the evidence so far was pointing out that you'll misunderstand it again and... here we go.

For Christ's sake. Yeah. Here we go, alright. Let's debunk your latest petty prevarication (I'll use boldface so you can skim more easily):

I was actually in very shitty mood, but despite that I decided to take the high road, even though you'd be perfect place to vent some of my frustration, so be grateful I didn't actually show how me being angry looks like.

You said this in your second post (at 7:15 PM, edited 7:35). Which means you were clearly referring to your first post (at 10:26 AM, edited 10:28). This was in response to my statement about your first post claiming that you were angry.

You had just spent two paragraphs telling me about how you weren't angry in your first post. That you were incredibly civil and calm, and that you curse for emphasis (as you did in your first post) because you're not a native speaker, and now you were telling me that I should be grateful you hadn't actually written in an angry fashion to me - in your first post. Which is what you were clearly talking about.

It's not the fault of anyone's "reading comprehension" that they don't infer something that you didn't say - and obviously didn't mean. I haven't misunderstood anything - your backpedaling is just ridiculously transparent. "Oh I figured it should be obvious what I actually meant ... guess you're just too dim to see it". That's a tired old trick, kid. You think I've never seen someone pull that bullshit before? It reminds me of Trump after Helsinki.

I would say that you're the one with comprehension problems, but we both know that's not true. Your grasp of English is just fine. You're just scrambling for a face-saving lie and getting your story confused. All to avoid the simple courtesy of saying "my bad".

Don't get more pissed at me for saying this. We're both angry, and just like you, I'm resisting fully unloading on you. If you're wondering why I'm persisting, it's because I think, unlike a lot of people online, you could be an enjoyable conversation partner if you could control your temper. As I've had to learn to do. I know you think you hid your anger at first, but you didn't. Which is why I responded the way I did. I was honestly trying to lower the temperature. If that seemed insincere to you, I am sorry about that.

But I proved to you that I was sincere when I replied soon after to the rest of your post - which you probably didn't even read. One would hope you'd at least have had the decency to acknowledge that, since it was the root of our misunderstanding.

I'm guessing you still have no desire to converse. That's a shame. You're thoughtful and intelligent when you want to be (more than I can say for many), but you lack the maturity to admit when you're wrong. So you dig in, start making up excuses, and then hurl childish insults out of embarrassment when called out.

I wish you'd step back, cool down, and reply with some grace and maturity. But I'm fully expecting you to make up some other nonsensical explanation contradicting something else you've previously said, and blame me for not understanding what you clearly didn't mean - or for inferring what you clearly did. I expect this because it seems pretty clear to me that you're quite young, and people don't grow up overnight. Some never do at all.

But I'll be happy to give you a big ol' apology if you prove me wrong. If not, let's drop it.

last edited at Jul 13, 2022 8:21PM

I'm very used to writing walls of text that then nobody reads/replies to and honestly at this point I barely bother to post, because it feels like a waste of time, so I forgot to thank you in my previous post for proving to me yet again, that it indeed is just a waste of time. I hope you'll appreciate experiencing for yourself how it feels.

Talking only for the record I'd like to state I've read all of Eromancer's posts as well as yours and everyone else's, and I found the debate very interesting. I only wish civility would be a greater concern for all involved.

Yeah, no argument there. I have clearly failed in that regard.

But thank you for reading my posts and not assuming I'm some men's rights incel crusading for heteronormativity. Nobody explicitly said that to me, but it was the vibe I was getting from everone piling on. I was just trying to have a conversation about a relationship in a manga that I find interesting.

I just posted an angry response before this - I should probably delete it but that would be insincere. I promise everyone it will be my last one ever on this forum.

last edited at Jul 13, 2022 8:09PM

We're clearly past the point of off-topic now. You should really drop it now.

Being terrible to people who you feel are being terrible is never a solution. And lamenting civility immediately after a literal wall of condescension and hostility is disingenuous to put it charitably.

We're clearly past the point of off-topic now. You should really drop it now.

Yes. Agreed.

Being terrible to people who you feel are being terrible is never a solution. And lamenting civility immediately after a literal wall of condescension and hostility is disingenuous to put it charitably.

Well, that's why I took ownership of it. Do you think I should delete it? Seems insincere.

Sorry for my chippy response to you earlier. Came at a bad time.

Mod Note

Guess I should've been here a while ago, but better late than never. In the case anyone wishes to make amends, they may do so. Otherwise, we're dropping this particular conversation for the time being. Thanks.

Mod Note

Guess I should've been here a while ago, but better late than never. In the case anyone wishes to make amends, they may do so. Otherwise, we're dropping this particular conversation for the time being. Thanks.

Nevri, whatever our misunderstandings and opinions of each other, I hope we can one day converse when we're being our better selves.

I don't understand why people get mad with Kaoru. Like, I understand not liking a character, but it's not like she's in "control" of what she's doing. It's the author who writes her like that xD. But I understand that it's better to be mad at a fictional character rather than the author lol.
Anyway, every time you see someone doing something dumb or bad please keep in mind that all the characters depicted are 17 years old at most I think. You shouldn't expect high levels of emotional maturity (or maturity in general). At that age, or younger than that age, people who act responsibly and maturely are the exception not the rule.

That being said, of course I also want to see Kaoru become a better person, it's not fun to read about someone being an asshole to people who don't deserve it. I'd like to see her struggle and make an actual effort to improve. You know, character development and all that stff

That being said, of course I also want to see Kaoru become a better person, it's not fun to read about someone being an asshole to people who don't deserve it. I'd like to see her struggle and make an actual effort to improve. You know, character development and all that stff

It's the age-old trope - the hotter someone is, the more the audience (or readership) will give them chances to improve. Bad boys and bad girls. If Kaoru wasn't stunningly beautiful, she'd be the "protagonist's creepy friend" trope.

I think many people are familiar with someone in real life of whom Kaoru reminds them. Those that make no effort to improve are often rewarded for it, which is understandably infuriating. I'm personally very interested in seeing her growth as a person, because everyone deserves that chance.