It’s not that I’m not trying to write an actual article, using the idea of publishing these reports as an excuse to procrastinate even further because I will still write something anyway. No, it’s just that research is hard, way too hard. Every time I try to get back into the next etymology article I hit a wall, the only real way over the wall is to lower the standard of proof for certain aspects just to force through them. I just don’t see myself as a reputable enough source on linguistics to not sprinkle every definitive statement with a few dozen hours of at least secondary source readings.
Ms. Villainess, Playing with the Heroine’s Feelings Will Lead to Retribution, You Know? (反派小姐，瞎撩女主是会被清算的) is a gender-bender yuri harem isekai web novel, where the isekai is a novel written by the main character, Lu Zhuxin. The “original work” is an erotic xianxia harem series borrowing elements from omegaverse fiction, particularly in that “sword cultivators” have pure yang energy while “fox demons” have yin energy, with an inherent attraction between the two. The “protagonist,” Song Shixuan, then learns a secret art that allows his yang energy to act as a pheromone which erodes the rationality of those with yin energy; typically such skills are reserved for the fox demons who fit the typical seductress role of mythological foxes. The original Fox Queen, having served as an early “boss” in the “original work” and thus having been “tamed,” overcomes the confines of the fictional world just to kill the author (I absolutely love this sort of thing, check out Re:CREATORS [8/10]), leading to Lu Zhuxin taking her place in the story. Lu Zhuxin would rather not follow the original plot, being tamed by Song Shixuan into a “creampuff” (see below), thus she has to undermine the force of the plot (Heavenly Dao) by taking all of Shixuan’s future harem for herself so the story can’t continue as normal. As for how that goes, well, the “mind break” tag certainly isn’t referring to Lu Zhuxin.
奶油泡芙 (nǎiyóu pàofú, “cream puff”) per some discussion on Baidu, refers to someone who is dependent, relying on others due to weakness and unwillingness to be alone; essentially, someone who is kept. Supposedly it comes from a How to Win Friends & Influence People quote. 变成奶油泡芙 (biàn chéng nǎiyóu pàofú, “(to) become a cream puff”) either means becoming obese or having a life filled with comfort, happiness, or sweetness (like a cream puff). Trying to find an agreeable definition for any 网络梗 (wǎngluò gěng, “net slang, meme”) is extremely taxing, I miss Jikipedia. Sometimes you do just stumble across funny tangents, like the phrase 今晚你想当旺旺雪饼还是泡芙 (lit. “tonight, do you want to be a Wang Wang Snow Cake/Cracker or a (cream) puff?”), basically “should I cum inside or outside?” Oh, “cream puff” is also a dated homophobic slur in English, circa ‘60s or ‘70s as far as I’ve heard, but that’s not really relevant here.
The plot is structured as a series of “conquest” arcs, similar to Data a Live (デート・ア・ライブ [2~3/10]) or The World God Only Knows (神のみぞ知るセカイ [4~7/10]). Each arc is then dictated by the heroine to be wooed, with Lu Zhuxin role-playing to fit the narrative she set up for it. The second arc in particular is more akin to a sort of spy romance, where both Zhuxin and the heroine are competing with information control; the closest I’ve gotten to enjoying that genre is SPY×FAMILY [9/10], which doesn’t even count. Honestly, I’m not into omegaverse/ABO tropes either, probably the only positive experiences I’ve had with them are various secondary creations1 by Mikanuji, the author of Fuzoroi no Renri (不揃いの連理 [8/10]), and that’s probably just because the art is good enough; on the other hand, I do love any arbitrary justification for same-sex reproduction, like the blood cocoons in The Delicate Female Lead Only Wants to be Loved by the Villainous Young Ladies (娇软女主只想收获反派大小姐宠爱 [7/10]). There’s also the reincarnation into erotica aspect, I obviously don’t mind a little spice but too blatant a setup for lewdness is just annoying rather than hot most of the time, which is why I never really read English web novels;2 plus, my last experience with the idea was Succubus’ Life in Another World (サキュバスさんの異世界生活 [4/10]), which was mid enough for the author to outright delete it. Regardless of all that, I did give this one a shot, putting it on hold at ch. 196, giving it an alright 5/10.
I was working more on world-building for that web novel I mentioned I was going to write last time, when I mentioned to my wife that the planet it is on is actually a binary system, its moon being another inhabited planet. This brought about a myriad of questions, particularly in how much the residents of the first planet would be able to observe and discover about the other. I spent nearly a whole day on thinking that over and doing some math to determine the distance it should be at and how often they would orbit each other. Is two months a year a bit weird? If there was a habitable planet 1.25 million kilometers away, when would people be able to definitively say they know it is inhabited? I am open to suggestions on this question, the technological development of the world is a bit chaotic anyway, not that I want it to be as extreme as That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime (転生したらスライムだった件 [7/10])’s cyclical destruction of civilization.
Gakusei Gidai, Boku wo Ijimeteita Yankī♂ ga Buka Toshite Haittekita Ken (学生時代、僕をいじめていたヤンキー ♂ が部下として入ってきた件) is a josou (女装, “crossdressing”) otokonoko (男の娘, “femboy/tomgirl”) erotic doujinshi (同人誌, “self-published work”) about an ex-yankī (ヤンキー, “delinquent”) who moves back to his hometown to work at a company owned by a guy he used to bully. It’s an extension of the “Ex-Yankee OL” (元ヤンキー OL) section published in TuriSasu (ツリサス)’s previous work Bitches with Dicks ~Otokonoko Report~ (ついてるメス〜男の娘レポート〜), which was a compilation of posts to their pixivFanbox. TuriSasu did promise that some stories in that compilation would get full manga, but I am a bit disappointed in this being the first one. Sure, it was the first section, but the sort of power dynamic revenge setup of “nobody else would hire you” isn’t exactly my favorite. It is probably the only one that had forcefemming in it, though, so if that’s what you’re going into it for then this is the best option. TuriSasu’s art is, as usual, god-tier; they got so much better at drawing girls once they decided the girls are boys. Anyway, only the first free (they release the non-erotic sections of the stories without requiring subscription) and premium sections are released so far, so it’s a tentative 6/10 just based on my love for the art style.
Forced to Sell Myself to the Female Lead After Killing the Male Lead (干掉男主的我被迫把自己卖给女主) is a gender-bender3 isekai yuri fantasy web novel with a “reincarnated as the demon lord” sort of premise. I had previously read up to vol. 7 ch. 40, so I’m just catching up on it this time. I’ve seen some compare it to OVERLORD [5/10], simply based on the villain role of the protagonist, Yu Mo, as well as the presence of incredibly loyal subordinates, but it is a rather common setup, actually. Maybe you could compare it to The Eminence in Shadow (陰の実力者になりたくて！[6/10]) based on how much Yu Mo just doesn’t know what her children are actually doing. Yu Mo is reincarnated as the “Demon Temple,” a source of abyssal power in a frozen forest that corrupts life into abyssal demons, some of whom manage to retain or even gain a level of sentience, seeing themselves as Yu Mo’s children. The initial presentation of the reincarnation is that Yu Mo is given the task of being the “last boss,” ultimately defeated by the Children of Destiny. She’s pretty into this goal, trying constantly to control the narrative to give the Children of Destiny a proper leveling experience; her adoptive children, on the other hand, don’t understand why she’s suicidally supportive of the Children of Destiny, instead opting to secretly hinder that plot. That’s about as much as I can say without spoiling4 the whole plot, I’ll just hint that after Yu Mo gets to know the Daughter of Destiny, Mengxi, her judgement of the Chosen Son becomes less about if he can defeat her and more if he’s even deserving of Mengxi… because it’s yuri. It actually feels really weird talking about all this setup with a long-running web novel given that they tend to, y’know, shift context in the later parts, so none of this is particularly relevant to the part I’ve actually been reading. Catching up to vol. 7 ch. 140 and it’s still a solid 7/10
I’ll try really hard to get some actual writing done this week, I promise. That aside, I’ve been really thinking about rereading Ascendance of a Bookworm (本好きの下剋上 ～司書になるためには手段を選んでいられません～ [8/10]) lately, at least for the world-building. Perhaps I’ll catch up on Is It Funny That The Dragon Slayer Failed And Became The Dragon Princess? (屠龙失败变成龙族公主很好笑吗？[6/10]) because I’ve been thinking about “tsundere POV” for some reason; or maybe I Will Never Submit to Miss Grim Reaper (萝变的我绝不向死神小姐屈服 [5/10]) because I’ve been thinking about writing a web novel and it’s about a web novel author… not that I’d want to write like them, I was just reminded of it and remembered the more slice-of-life aspects of it. What I mean to say is that I’m definitely going to get some writing done, for sure.
Kimi no Koi wa Watashi no Koi (君の恋は私の恋) was the first one I read, because twincest, but was immediately like “oh shit I know this artist” and kind of just overlooked the omegaverse stuff. ↩︎
I would also note that there’s just more quality filters present when it comes to Chinese novels, both in the editorial oversight and in the choice of works to be translated into English. Then there’s the fact that it’s easier to overlook awkwardness in translated works, because you can assume it’s just a lack of familiarity with tropes, language, etc. Anyway, I try to read English web novels occasionally, but I just can’t get into “She’s the hottest smartest girl at smart hottie academy. Her only flaw? She’s so perfect she’s practically untouchable… except for me, I get to fuck her.” ↩︎
The translator claims that this series “is not gender bander, It will become clear after chapter 1000+” and I honestly have no clue what the fuck they meant by that. Even if [SPOILERS] the other personality within Yu Mo were to be the “original” personality and Yu Mo is just possession the Demon Temple along with them, then this series would still be gender bender, because Yu Mo was a man on “Blue Star” and is now a woman! So it can’t be that, right? But that’s the only thing I can think of that’s revealed around ch. 1000. Anything revealed later just reinforces Yu Mo’s history further. Hell, could something even be barred from a genre based on a technicality? Only pedants do that, a series with all the gender-bender tropes of learning to live with a woman’s body can’t possibly convince me it isn’t gender-bender like that. The Elf Queen blah blah Sister one from the last entry would be even less gender-bender then, because [SPOILERS] she was originally the sister in question, just became a man in the meantime!
There is also the thing where she inherited the power of a saint, and would thus eventually inherit the memories as well, does that mean she was originally a girl? Maybe? But like Elf Queen it doesn’t matter. ↩︎
If you need some spoilers to hook you in further, the idea that Yu Mo is meant to be the final boss is a bit of a lie. This plot is more of a test of her strength and character. Even more spoiling, it’s a test to see if she is worthy of Mengxi, so dropping the whole getting killed thing to date Mengxi is well within expectations. That’s even after finding out the Son of Destiny is just a position that people get swapped into for the “trial” of this world. ↩︎