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F/F Romance Visual Novel Rec: Love Curse

2025-05-29T14:06:55Z

Love Curse is probably my favourite purely f/f romance novel I've played to date. It's not quite on par with my favourite otome (since that's a much larger genre with more to pick from), but still better than the average.

It's a well made Chinese game about a 20 year old lesbian college student who suddenly gets cursed to find her soulmate or die, and ends up falling for one of four different women in her life while she navigates uni, work, relationships, and the supernatural. The love interests and romances are enjoyably varied, and are a fun mix of sweet and a little messed up, with a choice of both fluffy happy endings and darkly romantic bad ends with tragedy/controlling yanderes/implicit hatesex etc.
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Two f/f narrative games

2025-02-15T03:43:08Z

Normally I wouldn't link to games I haven't played but I know I'll forget otherwise.

Eclipse: Special Forces is butch/butch military scifi, just a demo so far but worth checking out for the trailer alone if that premise appeals.

Velvet Bite: Softly, with Teeth m/m and m/f contemporary romance with vampires, was much anticipated and just came out. But tragically the reviews look pretty bad. OH WELL at least it looks pretty and we can imagine the game it could have been.

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Fiction which is not m/m romance

2024-01-19T01:10:26Z

These ended up dividing neatly into some specific subgenres. I really have been mostly into m/m romance lately, huh...

Non-romance Anime:
Bocci the Rock
Play it cool guys

m/f romance manga and webtoon:
Sweat and Soap
Busu ni Hanataba wo
Everyone wants to get married
Another Typical Fantasy Romance

m/m but not romance manga:
The Summer Hikaru Died

f/f romantic fantasy novel:
Earthcast
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Anime I am watching right now or recently dropped

2023-10-29T05:48:09Z

Watching: Tearmoon Empire, Our Dating Story: The Experienced You and The Inexperienced Me, I'm Giving the Disgraced Noble Lady I Rescued a Crash Course in Naughtiness, Heaven Official's Blessing Season 2, My New Boss is Goofy

Dropped/paused: A Girl and Her Guard Dog, I'm in Love With The Villainess, Chainsaw Man

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Non-Canon Jane Austen Fanfic Ship Prompt Fics 2023

2023-06-15T02:51:55Z

Non-Canon JAFF Ship Prompt Fics 2023

Seems relevant to some people's interests!

Below the cut, the two prompts I posted, for my own records. I don't know if I'll write anything, I haven't had the writing bug in a while, but it was fun coming up with prompts.
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Iffy Femslash Anime on Crunchyroll

2022-12-16T07:51:22Z

Sadly I do not know of any straightforwardly good f/f romances on Crunchyroll, but here are some anime which are in that vicinity. I've marked which ones have dubs, and put the one that requires content warnings under an extra internal cut.
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Reviiiiiiewssss

2022-10-25T13:21:42Z

I decided that if I could review the game about ALGEBRA BEING FUN I could probably review some things more of you might actually be interested in. So! Off the top of my head without overthinking, let's go!

Lots of m/m, some m/f, and a little f/f and gen.

Live Action TV: Sandman, Old Fashioned Cupcake

Games: Nurse Love Syndrome, London Detetctive Mysteria

Anime: My Dress Up Darling, SpyxFamily, Sasaki and Miyano, Hirano and Kagiura, Umibe no Etranger

Prose fiction: Light Tea and Sweet Wine, The Wrong Way To A Demon Sect Leader, You Boys Play Games Very Well, spit_kitten
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Fluffy Rom-Com Webcomic Reviews

2022-06-26T12:29:26Z

Because I've been in the mood for them lately! None of these are spectacular but I had fun with them.

M/F:
My Boss’s Special Request

F/F:
Straight Girl Trap

M/M:
Idiots Don't Catch Colds
The Demon Lord Wants To Be Friends With Me
Baby Come On！
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Horizon Forbidden West and the Shady Lady

2022-03-25T13:36:44Z

So after some time, and seeing other people's opinions, I do have to agree that Horizon: Forbidden West is overall not as fun or interesting a game as Horizon: Zero Dawn. Some things I didn't mention in my review I've seen other people point out are the underwritten AI and simplistic jingoism.

But what I haven't seen people talk about is the VERY PROBLEMATIC FEMSLASHINESS that I QUITE APPRECIATED.

There's no way to talk about it without major spoilers, but I will say before the cut that it's not worth playing the game for, the plot is mostly helping quasi-Aztecs fight robot dinosaurs etc and the main character has no canon romance with anyone. But given that I was playing the game anyway, it was an added bonus.

Content notes: it's hard to explain without spoilers but like...very unhealthy f/f!
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Reviews August 2021

2021-08-18T05:46:39Z

Anime: Comic Girls, Blend-S, Jingai-san no Yome

Western Animation: Centaurworld

Books: They All Say I’ve Met a Ghost, Artificial Condition

Webcomic: Survive as the Hero's Wife/This Villainess Wants a Divorce!

Games: GardenPaws, Calico

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Media consumed by my ravenous maw, May 2021

2021-05-26T08:03:30Z

Hither, Page, Miss Not So Sidekick, Lonely Girl ni Sakaraeai, Subnautica Below Zero, Grim Tales 2, Cooking with Pride, A Thousand Autumns, Yes No and Maybe (has a content note for consent issues)
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Some romancey canons, mostly anime-ish

2021-03-09T05:04:39Z

No Content Notes for this section.

m/f: Horimiya, 7'Scarlet, Hibi Chouchou

f/f: Sayonara Rose Garden, Adachi and Shimamura

m/m: My Underachieving Seatmate Doesn’t Need Any Comforting

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Given: the Movie
** Content note: sexual assault **
( Content note: sexual assault )

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Reviews October 2020

2020-10-25T11:56:27Z

All stuff I liked!

Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You A Wizard?!, Star Trek Lower Decks, Case Files of Jeweller Richard, Adachi and Shimamura, Game Night, Booksmart, The Male Lead Is A Quilt
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Reviews August 2020: The Sequel

2020-08-23T11:16:35Z

Dungeons and Lesbians, Loneliness, Beware of the Villainess!, Takane to Hana, I Hear The Sunspot
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She-ra fanart recs from ffa

2020-06-09T02:59:30Z

FFA is an anonymous forum where a lot of unfortunate stuff gets posted but searching for "she-ra" was definitely a good choice. Here's the collections of fanart I encountered, I haven't looked at all of it but there's a lot of cute stuff from what I saw.

Spoilers in the art and my commentary.
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She-ra feelings

2020-06-08T08:19:26Z

I have finished all five seasons and it is GREAT. If you like girly animated scifi with MAGIC and SPACE SHIPS and PRINCESSES and GIRLS ANGSTILY TRYING TO KILL EACH OTHER AND THEN KISSING then this is the show for you.

It's definitely a kids show based on an 80s toy franchise: the worldbuilding is silly, there's lots of dumb jokes, and everything ends in hugs even when logically it maybe shouldn't. But it's got a good story and characters, with a surprising amount of moral and emotional complexity, as well as thrilling fights and cool scifi explosions etc.

Also the level of queerness just...ramps up over time, and season 5 is VERY QUEER INDEED :D There's MULTIPLE canon same sex relationships, all with enjoyable levels of angst-then-fluff, as well as a delightfully morally ambiguous canon non-binary character. I mean it's not a show ABOUT romance, the focus is on Beating The Evil Robots With Friendship etc. But the writers went out of their way to NOT centre m/f relationships and feelings.

A repeated theme is characters screwing up due to traumatic upbringings and having to work past it. So (a) this means watching characters work through trauma (b) it's the kind of fluffy show where most characters end up friends by the end, including some characters who caused trauma or were really awful as a result of it. I overall liked how this theme was handled, but YMMV, and some redemption/acceptance arcs are a bit glossed over.

Also I both ship Adora/Catra and also kinda see them as sisters, so.

Now for some random reactions I wrote from about the middle of Season 5 to the end, so I didn't flail at various people who haven't watched it yet and don't want spoilers.

This isn't a reaction post in any organised way and will make no sense if you haven't watched all of She-ra.

** Spoilers**
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Trailer for a f/f ballet of Phantom of the Opera

2020-02-20T06:05:12Z

Phantom of the Opera Trailer - Synetic Theater

Afaict there's no full recording, just the trailer. But if you're in Arlington, Virginia, in the US, it's running until March.

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Media Reviews February 2020

2020-02-17T08:33:55Z

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, That Time I Reincarnated as a Slime, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, Female General, Eldest Princess, The Queen and the Tailor, Guide on How to Fail at Online Dating, I ship my Adversary and Me, A Good Day to Be a Dog, Lovely Complex

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I Favour the Villainess by Inari

2020-01-30T15:49:35Z

This is a translated Japanese f/f comedy romance light novel, about a Japanese lesbian who finds herself in the world of the m/f dating sim she was playing...and does her best to avoid all the male love interests the game throws at her and instead win the heart and good ending of the game's haughty villainess.

Here's the English translation I read

It's pretty silly, and the romance didn't quite work for me, but it's a lot of fun, and a lot more queer and generally thoughtful than I expected. There's a lot of discussion of being a lesbian in both Japan and the fantasy world of the game, and even a secondary trans woman character who is treated pretty well. I'm pretty sure the author is a lesbian herself, those parts felt very real. It's also pretty fun as a fantasy novel, with magic battles, dilemmas around of the role of nobles in an unjust society etc. It's even vaguely left-wing. And it's quite funny.

My main issues:
1) The translation is pretty bad.
2) The protagonist, Rei, is like 25 before she gets shunted into the game, while her love interest Claire is 15. Rei doesn't expect Claire to return her feelings, and Claire is very tsundere in her rejection, but it was still a bit uncomfortable reading this teenager being openly sleazed on by an adult she thinks is a fellow teen. The silly tone and wish fulfilment nature of the premise makes it easier not to take the age gap literally, and their relationship becomes more complex and mutually supportive. So I mostly shipped it by the end, but not 100%. Overall I enjoyed it more as a queer humourous fantasy novel than a romance.

Also: The quasi-middle eastern country is a straightforwardly evil stereotype and there were a few moments of fatphobia, other dubconny women etc. A minor trans man character commits suicide, I thought it was handled adequately in context but still. There's a sympathetic depiction of sibling incest, it somehow managed not to squick me too badly but ymmv.

Still, I paid $1 to support the author's pixiv fanbox (kinda like patreon) and not just to read the porny extra >.> (which was as unsexy as I expected it to be)

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Thinking about how incredibly queer my favourite fiction was as a kid

2019-09-03T02:37:07Z

A cute A League Of Their Own vid on mmhm-vids reminded me how often I look back on stuff I was SUPER INTO as a kid and go "Ohhhh". I think I might have posted about this before but I'm DOING IT AGAIN.

These summaries are based on what I can remember, and thus are guaranteed to be skewed by child me's perception, watching the trailers is...odd.

Content note: consent issues.
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Initial Shera Season 3 feelings

2019-08-03T08:15:17Z

These feels are all very spoilery! I've given some backstory if you're not familiar with the show.

I currently at the start of Episode 4 of Season 3, and enjoying this season a LOT. The only thing that really bothers me so far is the disability issues the show has always had.

Content note: abusive parents, ambiguously incestuous shipping, iffy portrayal of disability

****SPOILERS****
( backstory )
( feels )

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Demographics of Yuri Fans in Japan, and English Speaking Fandom

2019-07-27T06:17:15Z

A conversation made me curious so I looked up if there was any information, and found two very interesting posts by the same blogger.

Yuri isn’t Made for Men: An Analysis of the Demographics of Yuri Mangaka and Fans compiles existing information on Japanese creators and fans

Report on the Yuri Fandom Demographic Survey discusses a survey they ran in English speaking yuri fandom

"Yuri" is f/f manga and anime made in Japan, which has a very different culture and history to f/f made in English.

tl;dr: Analysis I've seen of English speaking femslash fandom has it being like 90% queer women. But English speaking yuri fandom is more evenly split between (mostly straight) men and (mostly queer) women, with a non-negligible number of non binary people. And while there's gender differences in how people approach yuri, they're not as big as you might expect. I find this a really interesting counterpoint to the general assumption that f/f for straight men and f/f for queer women involve completely separate and distinct genres and social groups.

More thoughts and numbers below the cut! Also a brief mention of works containing incest.
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Shall We Date: Blood in Roses: Prologue and Bridget Chapter 1

2019-07-14T14:39:16Z

Time to try out this cheesy micro-transaction riddled vampire dating sim in the hopes of smooching a cute lady vampire.
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Serre

2019-07-11T14:44:05Z

One of the four current front-winners in the what romance should I play poll: Serre, a short cute $5 f/f romance visual novel about an anti-social plant nerd and the giant bee alien who crash-lands into her greenhouse looking to conquer the planet.

It's exactly the sort of game it looked like on the tin: fun and sweet, but very short and with not a lot of substance. I still enjoyed it, and there was more emotional depth than I was expecting even if the plot's pretty cartoonish. The art is well done, with more animation and CGs than you usually get for this sort of tiny indie game. There's not many choices and I don't think they affected the plot but they added some cute moments.

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Help me pick my next beau

2019-07-10T04:52:20Z

While I intend on playing some more Demon's Bond at some point, each route costs SEVEN WHOLE AUSTRALIAN DOLLARS (and 20c!) ands my ridiculous backlog of games I already paid for is staring at me judgementally, while shiny new games I haven't tried yet wave seductively from the distance.

So! Help me choose what ridiculous romantic game to try next!

View Poll: Who should I romance next?

You absolutely do NOT need to know who these people are, or have any intention of reading whatever posts I might write about them. Just follow your heart. But if you feel like making a more informed vote, there's some context below. And if you want to comment with arguments for your fave (including those I haven't listed) go ahead!
( Context )

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