>>Also (speaking of), going to the opera means Sakuya wears that dress,
>>which... well. That beats a sharp stick in the eye any day of the
>>week.
>
>This causes me to envision a mildly flustered, massively blushing
>Meiling the first time she saw said dress, which is just adorable.

oh jeez oh jeez don't know what to do with my eyes or my hands...

>>(I think the artist was trying to Make A Point about the tired old fan
>>trope of "Sakuya pads her bra" with that outfit. :)
>
>What is it with the fandom and cruel tropes about these characters?

Hell if I know. Sturgeon's Law as applied to fandom sentiments toward characters, I suppose.

That particular one stems from her design in one of the Touhou-themed fighting games, in which her character portrait is drawn somewhat more buxom than she looked in her previous appearances in the bullet hell games. Like all such fan jokes, it promptly took on a life of its own and started its own casino with blackjack and hookers.

(And if you're That Kind of Fan, it synergizes well with the take where Sakuya is constantly assaulting Meiling, because Meiling is forever finding out about the pads without really meaning to and then being punised for it.)

A lot of the darker/meaner fan tropes in Touhou fandom remind me of Greek myth. Specifically how people in Greek myth are constantly being punished by the gods for having witnessed, or even been the victims of, the crimes of other gods, rather than for anything THEY did. There's probably some deep-rooted cultural weirdness behind this.

>>That said, of the house's five "current" residents, I can see Meiling
>>as the only one willing to sit through an entire performance of
>>Love Amongst the Dragons. She probably even knows the
>>libretto.
>
>I feel like I should recognize that name, but I don't. Is that opera
>just a running joke I've failed to pick up entirely?

It's a Fire Nation opera from the Avatar: The Last Airbender setting that... I don't remember if it actually appears on the show, but it's like a running joke within Avatar itself that it's hard to get all the way through. (It's popped up a couple of times in the bits of UF that are set in Dìqiú. Kate likes the score, but can't handle the way most performing troupes stage the opera itself.)

>Though probably it is as you suggest, the animators getting
>carried away (that's the word of god explanation for 2B's outfit over
>in Nier: Automata, she is dressed as she is because Yoko Taro likes
>pretty girls, and is also completely out of f*cks to give.)

Heh. I have to admit, I kind of enjoy it when the people behind things like that don't even bother hiding it. Like Masamune Shirow's annotation about the orgy scene in the original Ghost in the Shell manga where he notes, "I made this an all-girl orgy because I didn't want to draw some guy's butt. God, this is crass." :)

>>It's a rare depiction of Meiling being fully genre-savvy and I am here
>>for it, as the young people say. :)
>
>They'll never know just how close to death they came. They really
>ought to send Meiling thank-you gifts.

Indeed, if they were only aware that the girl they were (metaphorically) circling wasn't putting her hands behind her back as a girlishly cute gesture of apprehension, but because that's where she keeps the knives in that particular civilian outfit. :)

>>(She then maneuvers Sakuya into a formalwear shop and Just Sorta
>>Casually gets her to try on a wedding dress, which is probably the
>>smoothest you will ever see Meiling being, if you happen to run
>>across that manga. :)
>
>Smooth, but also something of an atomic bomb of a hint, unless Sakuya
>is being depicted as uncharacteristically oblivious.

She's not presented as oblivious so much as conflicted/in denial. Like she's trying to convince herself that, even though they're on a date, Meiling isn't really all that into her, and the wedding store thing is just her idea of a weird joke.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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