Bloom into You

Whenever I go to the page for manga tagged with either Shoujo Ai or Yuri, most of the times there will be comments ranting about philosophy, belief, religion, morals, etc. Why can't we all simply enjoy the manga while it lasts? XD

Evidently, thoughtful and intelligent people are reading the manga you like.  A dreadful imposition, of course, but please bear with us, we need our manga fix too.

Whenever I go to the page for manga tagged with either Shoujo Ai or Yuri, most of the times there will be comments ranting about philosophy, belief, religion, morals, etc. Why can't we all simply enjoy the manga while it lasts? XD

Because people just can't resist the allure of it. That's just how it is... some people would even purposely go to such place so that they can complain about it.

That aside... As far as this manga is concerned, I personally really like it. The story flows and dynamic, it gives me a somewhat introspective feel to it. yes, it is different that usual but I think that's a good thing. A nice change from the Saccharine sweet or Heated ones. This one seem more mellow and tepid, but the story still has a quality that draws in the reader who are into those kind of story.

The interaction between the MC and the others are also very interesting. She is slowly changing bit by bit and she doesn't even realize it. It feels nice and natural, afterall, love in reality isn't something that happens with a snap of the finger. It is something that build overtime, this manga captures that perfectly.

Whenever I go to the page for manga tagged with either Shoujo Ai or Yuri, most of the times there will be comments ranting about philosophy, belief, religion, morals, etc. Why can't we all simply enjoy the manga while it lasts? XD

Thanks for another great chapter 4s...

Am I interrupting something...?

I'll have you know I identify as demipansexual intersex polyamorous genderqueer wolfkin headmate, so don't oppress me.

 

Also, Purple is my trigger, please change your name, stop oppressing my triggers.

 

Oh  - two new chapters so fast, nice! I love how tsundere Koito is to herself.

Firstly, im going to assume (unlike some earlier commenters) that this post is dripping in sarcasm precisely intended to mock (in good spirit) all the overblown SJW type folk in which case kudos to you. If it isnt,  you did an impressive job at making a serious post look sarcastic.

On the general topic, i agree with Gantz generally. I dont really care if you want to call yourself a demipansexual aromantic genderqueer turtledemikin or any such ridiculous mountain of labels. i really dont. What gets my goat (as a young, intelligent person) is this self serving amoral crusade by delusional elements within society who think only they know best and want to forcefully shove their opinions everywhere they can in some belief that they are the only ones who are right and everyone else is a sexist/racist/etc etc.

TL;DR: call yourselves whatever you want. just dont force your beliefs down my throat with some delusional moral complex.

Also, on the subject of tumblr i''d say 'put it to the internet sword' but it's already the laughing stock of the internet thanks to SJWs and a self-sustaining producer of means with which the internet can mock it endlessly.

Coming to the party way late in this, but the process involved reminded me of something I read that Rick Warren said...Not that I know who he is or what his history is like, but it is no less true or profound:

“Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.”

I feel like this is more true now than ever used to be.  The exclusion created by someone merely asserting their own opinion, which every person is entitled to have good or bad, is unnecessary to the subject when trying to gain understanding.  Then again, I do respect that many people seem to be incapable of these two things with respect...understanding with disagreement.  

Well, gosh!

For someone coming down in defence of nuance, that's rather categorical.  My own original comment that started this was rather a throwaway, and if I'm going to get more serious talking about this my position isn't going to be quite like Gantz0127's.  But I think there's a reasonable critique of excessive labelling, and I also think that just because something is part of a particular modern culture doesn't mean that it's out of line to criticize it in any way.

 

Spoiler

Stepping back a moment to the general question of whether it's OK to even question what people call themselves--what people call themselves clearly does not spring completely from their own utterly separate individuality.  They're drawing on social and cultural constructs which in turn are influenced, not determined but influenced, by political and economic conditions and structures.  It's always obvious that that was true in the past, but always easy to overlook that it is still true now.  And all of that stuff is often at the service of particular groups in society, which the individual may not belong to.  So people can identify themselves in ways that are bad for them or others or simply flat out wrong.  It's more obvious for other kinds of situations, like people identifying as straight due to internalizing social pressures when they clearly are not, or people identifying as "white" in a racist sense that opposes and fears everyone else.  But a politics or social approach being broadly positive does not make it perfect or effective, a lesson which lately every generation tends to learn too late (except my generation--my generation mostly just sucked).

 

Consider the hippies.  I'm too young to have been a hippie, but since I was a teenager during the 70s/80s, with fucking disco, me me me, bigotry all over the goddamn place, cynicism without any idealism driving it, and sex seen as simultaneously mandatory and degrading, I'd rather identify with hippies.  In my opinion the hippies were right about a lot of things and were a generally very positive force.  But they had weaknesses--they were naive as all hell, they weren't willing to think things through, they were full of magical thinking.  They wanted to change the world, but they thought as long as they acted as if the world was changing it would just happen.  And for some time it seemed almost as though it was happening--that the way hippies thought was becoming just common sense and the clock couldn't be turned back.  But they were wrong.  It turned out positive consciousness does not, in itself, change the world.  Who has the money, for instance, makes a really big difference.  The hippies also failed to really get past sexism and racism and stuff, but that's not surprising because that's a long struggle.

 

Now back to the multiplication of terminology.  I do think Gantz0127 has a point about taking on a label being a potential limitation, both a narrowing of perspective and a push towards stasis.  Definition has implications, whether it's definition of self or definition of anything else.  It has strengths, but even a good map is never the territory, even a good model is never the phenomenon being modelled.  If you define yourself according to a term you may exclude or ignore parts of yourself that don't conform to the term.  Reacting to that kind of problem by coming up with ever more detailed and subdivided terms will never actually work.

But it will become confusing.  I think to some extent the whole mishmosh has become in effect a kind of insider jargon.  It is partly a tool for communication--but partly a tool for denying communication, for exclusion of those who are not expert in the jargon, for defining a community not of people who have particular romantic/sexual attributes but of people who are romantic/sexual attribute aficionados.  It's much like the way you see certain people getting all huffy about whether you should be saying yaoi, BL, shounen ai, or whatever and deriding those who don't have their elite perceptions of the terms.  Or, I could if I chose wax eloquent about primitive accumulation, the proletariat, crises of overproduction, class struggle and the moronic, obscurantist nature of the term "middle class"; all these things are useful for communication among socialism nerds, but barriers to communication with people who aren't socialism nerds.

 

In your reply to me you talk about how stressful it is to talk about these things, and how a label can make it easier.  This makes me wonder just how real modern acceptance is.  If everyone's really accepting everybody, then why is everyone so stressed out?  Here I'd like to momentarily return to hippies.  Hippies wouldn't have dug that idea.  The hippie ethos, whatever its weaknesses, fundamentally proposed that everyone's thing was their thing, and as the Wiccans say "An it harm none, do as ye will".  They didn't accept you because you belonged to a category, they were just like, wow, man, everyone can be who they are, it's all cool.  They weren't all tight-assed about the whole thing.  I really think the current approach could use an infusion of that more easy-going attitude, where acceptance and positive emotion are just presumed rather than being conditional on getting your details right.

 

Multiplying labels also can subdivide broad communities into ever smaller sub-communities.  This is a very internetty thing to do; the internet allows us to find like-minded people and that has strong benefits.  But politically it's a problem.  IMO the most important divide in this world is between the rich and everyone else.  Many of the other splits are created or exploited and strengthened by those same rich in order to divide us and rule.  Atomization of communities in other ways has also been created by those in charge of the system--look at the way suburbia works, zillions of people who never interact with their neighbours, spend all their time either at work, at home, commuting, or shopping in places where their sole human interaction is with the Wal-mart greeters.  So people are divided and distracted--but the basic reality is that the youth especially are all in the same boat:  You're all being screwed by the system, and that's before global warming really starts to bite.  You need to be wary of anything that splits you apart more than it draws you together.  I worry that the masses of terminology could turn out to be part of a strategic, political mistake that could contribute to you guys failing in whatever project you turn out to have been trying to do much the way the hippies failed in theirs.  It may seem that the communities creating acceptance for all the variations have a critical mass that cannot be turned back, and right now it may be convenient for the bosses to rely on other kinds of scapegoating like religious (Muslims eeevil!), but that is likely to be an illusion, as it was for the hippies, if you leave the same old structures in place where the top of the pyramid benefits from creating division.

 

This is not meant as a uniform condemnation of the whole thing.  But it is unwise to imagine that one's current cultural matrix embodies perfection and inevitability.  Every setup has weaknesses and even if one does not wish to change things it is wise to be aware of those weaknesses.

Okay, before I take the time to reply to this, I want to complement it. This is a thoughtful and articulate critique, that brings into the dialogue a lot of very real concerns about some of the political and social implications of social fragmentation via labels.

This is probably one of the best replies I have ever received.

Yeah, I know if someone "identifies" as one of the first two then I'm probably dealing with a tumblerite who also has a billion different quirks that make him/her/hir/zir/zer/der special and unique and whoever disagrees with him/her/hir/zir/zer/der is a bigot.

It really doesn't cost you anything to let someone have the identity they want. It's really just simple courtesy.

And yes, if you go around making negative comments about peoples identity it is generally regarded as bigoted. Regardless of whether that identity is related to sex, gender orientation, religion, or race. When you deny someones identity, it's hateful. Especially since it is so incredibly easy to just not say things that are hurtful.

Imagine how much less offensive your entire comment could have been if you only said the important part.

 

"I accept and support anyone who is gay/bi/trans/asexual or just about anything else"

 

The rest is pretty terrible stuff.

For someone coming down in defence of nuance, that's rather categorical.  My own original comment that started this was rather a throwaway, and if I'm going to get more serious talking about this my position isn't going to be quite like Gantz0127's.  But I think there's a reasonable critique of excessive labelling, and I also think that just because something is part of a particular modern culture doesn't mean that it's out of line to criticize it in any way.

Having a name for something as complex and nuanced sexual and romantic interests, can simplify things and make it easier to start into a conversation close to the same page. Polyamourous? Pansexual? Bisexual? Gay, straight, transsexual?

Yeah, I know if someone "identifies" as one of the first two then I'm probably dealing with a tumblerite who also has a billion different quirks that make him/her/hir/zir/zer/der special and unique and whoever disagrees with him/her/hir/zir/zer/der is a bigot.

I'd like to apologize for my comment. I still have my disagreements with the movement but I definitely went too far.

I apologize to anyone I hurt and I will withdraw from the conversation hereon in.

You know, as someone a bit older, practically the only thing that weirds me out about the current young generation is your insistence on coming up with a separate friggin' name for every tiny nuance and variation of attitude towards sex, romance, gender and so forth under the sun.  I'm really impressed that unlike in my youth the default approach to 'em all is acceptance, but the ten thousand names . . . why?

For the same reason we name anything PLG. Communication.

Having a name for something as complex and nuanced sexual and romantic interests, can simplify things and make it easier to start into a conversation close to the same page. Polyamourous? Pansexual? Bisexual? Gay, straight, transsexual?

It's a lot less stressful to let people know you are thingword1 than to try to drop lots of hints, or worse tell some kind of life story that gets people uncomfortable.

It's also important for non-racial minority groups to openly self identify so they can find people of similar interests. If I see a guy with a D20 shirt on, I think "I bet that guy plays D&D"  The two of us have something to talk about now.

Generally people don't wear there romantic inclinations on their shirt. I am willing to let people have as many names as they want if it might help them find happiness.

Also belonging feels great, but that is kind of a no brainier. We humans love our groups. lol

Just because you define something as progress does not mean that everyone who disagrees with you is "Anti-Progressive." I do agree with you that the winds of change blow in that direction, but change and progress are two different things.

 

I try to be open minded, I accept and support anyone who is gay/bi/trans/asexual or just about anything else, but I shouldn't need a degree in gender and sexuality to do it, nor should I need to carry around a dictionary. Everyone wants to be a special snowflake and assert their individuality and that is fine, but this new trend of inventing terms/labels/tags to define you is getting out of hand.

 

Labels are comforting, but they are bad. People are supposed to be uncomfortable and they are supposed to be confused. It's how you grow further as a person and gain character, toughen up and thrive as life continues. Ones identity is an ongoing process as you interact with the world around you. The world changes and you too are changed. Labels inhibit change and limits possibilities, going hand in hand with a more rigid mentality. They are static and by attaching such things to yourself, you become static as well. Maybe as one become advanced in age it is ok to attach such things to yourself, but I believe it detrimental to most involved in this movement.

Lets say I had a young daughter in her teens, who after a few bad relationships decides she is aromatic.This prevents her from the possibility of seeing the other side of romance. Maybe she is aromatic, or maybe she is simply disillusioned. I don't presume to know, but nor should she. Whatever she would end up being or doing I would accept her, but I would expect her to continually try and go beyond the comfort zone of that label and test the beliefs about herself that she develops.

I mean, hell, I'm gonna be 30 in a few years and I wouldn't presume to define myself. If you want to do so, that is your own business, but I resent that these new labels are being forced on society at large. If people are so desperate for a word to associate with, just say you're ambiguous/ambivalent.

Much of what you just said is ignorant, and very nearly bigoted.

Any statement that starts with "Hey I support people being like X" and is followed by a "but Y", is a good context clue that you might be making a potentially hurtful and likely offensive statement.

If you try to support people being whatever they identify as, stop trying. Just do it.

Imagine how much less offensive your entire comment could have been if you only said the important part.

"I accept and support anyone who is gay/bi/trans/asexual or just about anything else"

The rest is pretty terrible stuff. If you are curious what makes makes me think that, I would be happy to talk to you about it in private message.

Ahhh, it's been a while. A good psychological Shoujo Ai. Can anyone recommend something similar?

Something like Octave or Sweet Blue Flowers comes to mind. But you've probably read them.

Maybe Renai Manga or Dear my Teacher or something from Takemiya Jin's works.

Ahhh, it's been a while. A good psychological Shoujo Ai. Can anyone recommend something similar?

EDIT: Post deleted due to regret. You can still see what I posted in the quotes of others, but I felt I should delete the original post.

Wasn't the Yuri project taking on further translation?

I believe so. Chapter 7 is in QC and Chapter 8 is in editing atm. Guess somebody just felt like doing it themselves or something?

Also, page 2 on chapter 7 says "Episode Six". Seems to be an error in print, the raws say the same thing, lol

(and there's some page bleed as well; chapter 8 page 23 panel 4 & 5 is a good example)

Wasn't the Yuri project taking on further translation?

There is nothing wrong with being a demipansexual intersex polyamorous individual.
Associating those valid labels with shethead otherkins and god knows what a headmate is (coming from a veteran tumblrian) just makes yourself look like every other arse who only knows how to focus on what tumblr already acknowledges is its bad parts--which isn't even close to 3% of the tumblr userbase--is utterly ridiculous. It's like the folks who think it's edgy to make fun of bands because they heard other people saying they're "emo", even when the band has consistently moved from style to style several times and hadn't written anything angsty for years.

 

I will give the trigger part, which is true, though. Tumblr will trigger tag for anything, even when scopophobia isn't even what they think it is. Though thankfully people haven't done that for a while with that term in particular.

Yyyeaaaah. It's all "special" tags people give themselves to make themselves look as special as possible. As unique as possible.

I'll have you know I identify as demipansexual intersex polyamorous genderqueer wolfkin headmate, so don't oppress me.

 

Also, Purple is my trigger, please change your name, stop oppressing my triggers.

 

Oh  - two new chapters so fast, nice! I love how tsundere Koito is to herself.

There is nothing wrong with being a demipansexual intersex polyamorous individual.
Associating those valid labels with shethead otherkins and god knows what a headmate is (coming from a veteran tumblrian) just makes yourself look like every other arse who only knows how to focus on what tumblr already acknowledges is its bad parts--which isn't even close to 3% of the tumblr userbase--is utterly ridiculous. It's like the folks who think it's edgy to make fun of bands because they heard other people saying they're "emo", even when the band has consistently moved from style to style several times and hadn't written anything angsty for years.

I will give the trigger part, which is true, though. Tumblr will trigger tag for anything, even when scopophobia isn't even what they think it is. Though thankfully people haven't done that for a while with that term in particular.

You know, as someone a bit older, practically the only thing that weirds me out about the current young generation is your insistence on coming up with a separate friggin' name for every tiny nuance and variation of attitude towards sex, romance, gender and so forth under the sun.  I'm really impressed that unlike in my youth the default approach to 'em all is acceptance, but the ten thousand names . . . why?

Because when some people have certain terms to label themselves with if they so choose, it can often help them understand themselves better. If the terms already exist, then people who are such a way can slide into a state of understanding themselves much more easily.

Because aromantics/asexuals who used to think "there's something wrong with me" know that aro/ace is a thing, they're often comforted. But when they aren't entirely sure, demisexual and gray-ace helps. It also stops other people from stop trying to pursue them romantically as soon as they hear they're aro/ace.
I've been mostly confused about my own orientation for a lot of my life, and "bi" didn't quite fit, and so I didn't really feel like coming out as bi 'cause I don't date anyway. But then pansexuality was acknowledged, and "sexual attraction regardless of gender" hit me like a ton of bricks, like, "oh!"

Agender, genderfluid, genderqueer, biromantic, homoromantic asexual, etc... they're all very real things. Whether the anti-progressives on here like it or not, they will all become acknowledged like how not many used to take singular "they" seriously, and now it's word of the year.

Honestly I think "demiromantic" is redundant. Of course you're only going to develop romantic feelings after deep emotional attachment. I don't like the term "queerplatonic" either but I acknowledge those types of relationships exist.
 

You know, as someone a bit older, practically the only thing that weirds me out about the current young generation is your insistence on coming up with a separate friggin' name for every tiny nuance and variation of attitude towards sex, romance, gender and so forth under the sun.  I'm really impressed that unlike in my youth the default approach to 'em all is acceptance, but the ten thousand names . . . why?

As someone also older than the norm I also have no idea why everyone uses tags on themselves. Whenever my wife goes to Tumblr I see all the "Cis" "Homosexual" "Trans" "Hetero" "Asexual" on their profiles and I think is bullshit. It's tumblr not a dating site that needs that clarification. That mania with defining themselves by a few points that don't say shit about who they are.

That said, I found some classification to have an use. Like this one.See, people who are exposed to asexuality on a regular basis would know it's not the same and are diferrent levels. It's not just "Won't have sex ever" wich is what I thougth at the beggining. And one time I read demisexual and was "What is this?" In 3 minutes of google (Seriously guys, that's all it took. Not that fucking hard) I was a little less ignorant. And from seeing sjoe comment my use of "moonspeak" helped her/him understand more about who s/he was.

Now, if someone uses diferrent names for stuff like "Only fucks blue-eyed people" or "Only fucks Tall People" I will call it for the stupidity it is. But this, it has uses. While people has more nuance and can't be solely defined by those words it helps us understand more. So that why I use it.

PS. Sorry for the long tangent.

Btw, demi is becoming close to someone then having feelings.

Sooo, normal?

Ahhhh, Maki. How you are becoming my favourite character.

Let's try parsing this moonspeak....

Demiromantic: demi = half, so its someone who's...umm...mildly interested in romance?

Aromantic: Someone who's not into cuddly business.

Gray: No clue.

As someone who is Gray. Its not really no clue but rather kinda meh to it. You can have feelings but don't really crave for it. 

Btw, demi is becoming close to someone then having feelings.