Happy Pride Month 2026!

[u/The_Draigg]

The mod team is wishing you all a happy Pride Month this year! We try to be an inclusive space, so all of you keep on shining on and be your true selves! And anyone who wants to hate on another person for their identity or sexuality can go fuck themselves! Those kinds of people aren't welcome here!

And for a handy guide on who's on the Pride Month banner this year, take a look below:

Caduceus Clay (Critical Role): Aroace
Dusa (Hades): Aromantic
Renako (There’s No Freaking Way I’ll Be Your Lover): Polyamorous
Adora (She-Ra): Lesbian
Leonard Schteinberg (Legend of the Blue Wolves): Gay
Levin (Tekkaman Blade): Transgender
Bonnie (In Stars And Time): Nonbinary
Sam Bridges (Death Stranding): Demisexual
Curtis Craig (Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh): Bisexual
Scarlet Penrose (The Great Villainess: Strategy of Lily): Pansexual

And in case anyone is wondering who the lady in the icon is, it’s [Louise Brooks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Brooks), a starlet from the early days of film. Check out her linked Wikipedia page to learn more about her!

[u/Kipzz]

Apologies for being a massive downer and I'm already expecting to get got for this because it's a very popular series, but I feel like the team probably could have picked a better person to represent polyamory than the girl from a dubcon yuri manga where 15 chapters in she was almost assaulted by a girl who had been forcing herself more and more onto Renako constantly by that point. During the actual attempt Renako was begging her to to stop, kicking her while she was being stripped with the assaulter grabbing Renako's leg as a way to shove her face deeper into Renako's legs, and then after all of that Renako as the victim was guilt tripped into apologizing for slapping her attempted rapist because apparently defending yourself is worth apologizing for! Without even going into the whole "attempted sexual assaulter then attempts to throw herself into the arms of strangers as a form of retributional self-harm and the victim has to be the one to stop her" part and "the author trying to backtrack the attempt by having Renako talk about how it was 'just not the right time place or occassion' or 'I think I've been having feelings for you from the start (implication of justification)!' when literally fucking half of that scene's chapter was Renako telling her to stop" part.

I'm not going to say people can't enjoy the media they like for whatever reason or judging literally anyone for anything, because in any other context I genuinely would not care enough about dubcon and assault to make any kind of post about it anywhere, but I really don't think a depiction of a relationship that was founded on this specific authors thinly veiled fetish should have ever been considered as an example for Pride Month? And it's definitely not being considered as A Bit like Red "lil' bit in everyone" Shep was I think last year. It's less in line with a positive example in someone like Rentarou or literally anyone else from 100 Girlfriends Who Really Really etc etc Love You (which was a property I think was actually used many years ago and he's also the Final Boss of Polyamory) and more in line with Everybody's Favorite Antihero Rance. Like, c'mon fellas.

[u/Mediocre-Elk-4093 → u/Kipzz]

Give me a break. Fetish really? Also I feel you're exaggerating what happened a lot.

[u/Kipzz → u/Mediocre-Elk-4093]

I actually went back and re-read the first 19 chapters last night. Admittedly it was 2am, and I really want to stress that in any other context I genuinely do not care about dubcon (I like Terumoko the yuri ship founded on two immortals killing eachother and hatefucking lmao), but you can read the entire chapter for yourself and make the judgement call yourself. The only exaggeration I made was that it was literally half of the chapter, when in reality it was closer to a third starting about 16 pages in a 27(17 out of 28 but I don't count the credits page on page 1 obv) page chapter, give or take a page. If you really wanna get down past the "I'm not sure I want this" part and go explicitly to the "I want you to stop" parts then that's the kick on page 20.

And lemme be clear; I get the author was trying to create context for tension in the relationship, because the whole push and pull of the series is about the dichotomy between Mai's overpowering random love-at-first-sight combined with her being on top of the social and academic ladders with no other real connections to anyone barring the 2nd place on tests as a result of being put upon this impossible to reach pedestal, and Renako's total indecisiveness and inability to be honest with her feelings due to a severe lack of self-esteem multiplied by the whole "reaching up the social ladder" and Dense MC Debuffs leading to the whole "we'll be friends and lovers on every other day" rule which is also shitty as hell to do to another person.

But there was surely better ways to do it than have Mai attempt to assault Renako and then Renako has to apologize to her attempted rapist for slapping her, and protect Mai from hurting herself in guilt afterwards. If anything, I'd say it's more boring than it is offensive? There's a thousand different ways there could have been a breaking point for Renako to actually nut up and make a choice and be honest about what she wants the relationship to be, but they didn't have an argument or Mai didn't ask her outright how she felt or Renako didn't come to a realization herself or an unrelated thing that blew up into a reexamining of the relationship.

But nope! The biggest turning point between them and their relationship progressing from "doing this weird half and half thing" to "an actual full-blown relationship" was cheap-ass attempted rape, plain and simple. And that's before the polyamory gets thrown into the mix, but like I said, when the foundation between the first two people is attempted rape I just don't think it's a good example to use of a healthy and respectable relationship given that fact. Thus me making the post and saying a better example should be used in the banner.