Like seriously it comes down to common sense atp Rachel sees girl wanting to fuck + kiss her, no reason to assume she'd do both of these things purely for a mana transfer, literally confused as to why she's trying to kiss her because it's not necessary for mana transfer, proceeds to not consider that the reason Elysia is trying to kiss her is because she likes her romantically. She shouldn't think that the sex is for mana transfer either, considering Elysia refused to have sex under the pretext of mana transfer already. Rachel should realize that the only reason Elysia would do these things is because she wants to. It should at least cross her mind. If it hasn't she's just dumb, and that's not really bad writing, it's not bad characterization, it's just a fact.
I think maybe my bug about using dense is that dense is used in situations where there are clear signs of romantic attraction with people who have no previous dynamics with each other. Like romcoms where one character is like "you're the most important person in my life, I want to go see the fireworks with you specifically, etc." and the other person going "wow they're so nice, we're the best of friends, they would never like me romantically, I'm not special to them, etc." This situation doesn't feel like that because the only relationship Rachel has known with Elysia is one that's frankly pretty fucked up. Her not realizing that things have changed is not being dense, that's just a normal reaction to a new and confusing situation.
I think maybe my bug about using dense is that dense is used in situations where there are clear signs of romantic attraction with people who have no previous dynamics with each other. Like romcoms where one character is like "you're the most important person in my life, I want to go see the fireworks with you specifically, etc." and the other person going "wow they're so nice, we're the best of friends, they would never like me romantically, I'm not special to them, etc." This situation doesn't feel like that because the only relationship Rachel has known with Elysia is one that's frankly pretty fucked up. Her not realizing that things have changed is not being dense, that's just a normal reaction to a new and confusing situation.
Well like, yeah it's a complicated relationship, but the fact that this girl WANTS to kiss you for her own reasons and obviously not for mana transfer is probably the least complicated part of this.
If that's what you get from what I was saying, then I'm comfortable just stopping here because I'm not really finding it constructive talking past one another like this.
I hope you actually enjoy the series, at least. Otherwise this is a lot of energy spent being mad.
Do they? I feel like they both like each other but Rachel is just dense asf and doesn't realize she's not fucking just for mana. Or maybe she doesn't like Elysia or whatever her name is, nothing's really contradicting either way. Rachel's dense, fucks for mana, Elysia is tsundere leaving her denial phase (which makes sense cause she's been thinking about Rachel for 2 lifetimes) and will be constantly aggravated at Rachel's braindead antics. Regardless of whether Rachel likes her romantically or not, she does like her as a person a lot and will develop feelings either way. Maybe it feels like something's been redirected because we haven't ever seen Rachel's perspective
Ok wait after thinking about it for five seconds there are some plot holes. First of all, Rachel knows they don't have to fuck to mana transfer, so why did they have sex so much in the previous world? Rachel had to have enjoyed it which suggests she does like Elysia. Either that or she'd be fine fucking whoever and only was with Elysia specifically for mana, or maybe she just likes her for her body, both seem very unlikely considering how good their relationship seemed to be despite the circumstances. So Rachel clearly likes having sex with Elysia.
That brings into question why she would refuse her here and say what she said. She could be lying for some good reason, in which case none of what I'm typing matters, but going off of what we can actually speculate she has to just not realize that she likes Elysia and that's probably the most likely possibility. She's just much much more dense than I initially thought, cause she has to know she prefers having sex to mana transfer rather than just mana transferring, otherwise she wouldn't have been so aggressive in bed (Elysia's words, not mine) and would've just mana transfered normally. So she has to at least realize she likes having sex with Elysia. (Which begs the question why did she turn her down here????? Rachel POV when????)
Or maybe the dumbest option, she holds no romantic or sexual feelings towards Elysia at all and simply fucked her to hell and back because she realized Elysia liked it, and didn't care how fucked up that would be considering the power imbalance that was there. She'd have effectively gotten her hooked on sex to ensure her mana supplies never ran dry. Crazy. But would be toxic yuri, so I wouldn't exactly be mad about it.
TL;dr, Rachel is either dumb as bricks, does no introspective thought whatsoever and doesn't realize why she likes fucking Elysia or that she likes fucking Elysia at all, or she's a horrible person. + third thing possibly. So yeah I agree with Andigo actually this doesn't make sense
ANOTHER EDIT ACTUALLY IT DOES MAKE SENSE Rachel already tried to fuck Elysia under the pretense of mana transferring and Elysia got REALLY FUCKING PISSED so Rachel must've thought she was wrong about Elysia's feelings the whole time they've known each other and now feels really bad at fucking her for however many years cause she would've basically been forcing herself on Elysia for all that time WHICH IS WHY SHE GAVE ELYSIA THE COAT CAUSE SHE WAS ASHAMED THAT SHE WAS TURNED ON AND NOW SHE'S JUST EVEN MORE CONFUSED AT ELYSIA'S SEDUCTION ATTEMPT LEADING HER TO SAY THE WORST POSSIBLE THING IN THAT SITUATION. THIS HAS TO BE IT. Just drama enough to work for a misunderstanding trope, helps flesh out Rachel's character, etc etc. (You can tell I've spent like 2 hours thinking about this. Hope someone bothers to read all this. I love GL man. Great story so far. Also method of mana transfer does not matter it doesn't change that they've been fucking for years and Rachel is to dumb to think Elysia doesn't like her after initiating said fuckery)
ANOTHER ANOTHER KINDA SPOILER EDIT there's a Rachel flashback in the raws for next chapter so probably gonna debunk 90% of what I'm saying anyway but she likes Elysia trust]
Well like, yeah it's a complicated relationship, but the fact that this girl WANTS to kiss you for her own reasons and obviously not for mana transfer is probably the least complicated part of this.
If that's what you get from what I was saying, then I'm comfortable just stopping here because I'm not really finding it constructive talking past one another like this.
I hope you actually enjoy the series, at least. Otherwise this is a lot of energy spent being mad.
I already said I was loving the series so far.... I also wasn't mad or attacking the story for anything, if anything I was confused at you guys... I just think Rachel's dumb. Still like her.
Well, this is a fascinating dynamic. It seems like Elysia simultaneously has a lot of negative feelings towards Rachel, while also just wanting things to go back to how they were in the other world. Rachel, on the other hand, seems to really care about Elysia, but feels extremely guilty about their past relationship, doesn't want to go back to how things were, and probably feels that Elysia must hate her. The forelorn look on Rachel's face in the panel where she says they "don't have that kind of relationship" is wonderfully sad.
It seems like they're both so wrapped up in their own biased memory of how their relationship was in the other world, that they can't see the more complicated version of each other in from of them. Elysia can only see Rachel as simple minded, uncaring, and sex hungry, where Rachel can only see Elysia as a victim, missing her obvious feelings. I wonder if Rachel's blurred text in the prologue in the first chapter was something like: "I'm sorry" or "You're free now." It's a much more nuanced depiction of a former victim/victimizer relationship than I would have expected from a romance with a fantasy premise and such a bright art style.
I'm really excited to see where this goes! Thank you for the TL!
Well, this is a fascinating dynamic. It seems like Elysia simultaneously has a lot of negative feelings towards Rachel, while also just wanting things to go back to how they were in the other world. Rachel, on the other hand, seems to really care about Elysia, but feels extremely guilty about their past relationship, doesn't want to go back to how things were, and probably feels that Elysia must hate her. The forelorn look on Rachel's face in the panel where she says they "don't have that kind of relationship" is wonderfully sad.
It seems like they're both so wrapped up in their own biased memory of how their relationship was in the other world, that they can't see the more complicated version of each other in from of them. Elysia can only see Rachel as simple minded, uncaring, and sex hungry, where Rachel can only see Elysia as a victim, missing her obvious feelings. I wonder if Rachel's blurred text in the prologue in the first chapter was something like: "I'm sorry" or "You're free now." It's a much more nuanced depiction of a former victim/victimizer relationship than I would have expected from a romance with a fantasy premise and such a bright art style.
I'm really excited to see where this goes! Thank you for the TL!
One thing I do think is questionable about that is Elysia having negative feelings towards Rachel. Not to say that she shouldn't, I'd honestly expect her to, but it seems to me the only part of their relationship she's had an issue with is Rachel biting and scratching during sex (which is a whole different kind of problem) and the mana transferring. Probably cause their relationship being under the pretext of simply needing mana bothers her a lot. She seemed strangely okay with everything else from what we've heard and I can only assume that's because their relationship was as good as it could be with the power imbalance.
