I finished She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat:

I immediately want to read the manga, which may go further in plot than the show. The show was So good. So short, such an easy pace, you can easily watch when you have time the little 15 minute episodes. It's realistic while being gentle.

It really. Felt like a hug. Felt like a sanctuary. Felt like the two women's relationship, and you're taken to its comfortable loving space.

And I still think what I said earlier, perhaps even more so now. I wish I saw lots of elements of this in more media with women who love women. I know why I don't though: big companies want to make women who look conventionally hot to a broad audience so cue lots of makeup, being very skinny, fashionable often feminine clothing and makeup (which sometimes clash with the story like sets do sometimes just Too Polished for the place they're supposed to live/place characrer would shop at etc). It's not realistic, which is just a thing on shows sometimes. But it can get really... alienating? It can get to the point where like... I remember watching pretty little liars and...I've never been as skinny as any woman on that show, I never would be. I never would look as done up as them and live in big houses like them and never have... it didn't feel like Real People like me, it felt like a fun fantasy to watch at the most.

This show feels like life, feels like home. Again, Kasuga finally looks like someone I am, someone I could fall in love with in real life. And when I hear Yuki call her cute over and over? Women like Kasuga SHOULD be all over tv, not wearing makeup, in sweat shirts and pants, in simple ponytails, tall girls who will never be petite, tall girls who aren't skinny like a model, she's just very much like any girl you might walk next to at the supermarket! And she is cute! She is so lovable, and wonderful! And in this show the main woman Yuki looks at her in love, is constantly so happy because she knows Kasuga and Kasuga talks to her and Kasuga is just SO wonderful and amazing and sweet and beautiful in Yukis eyes. That element of the show alone felt wonderful to me. That for the first time since I think I ever watched any wlw story in a show or movie, that element felt realistic to me. (Oh But I'm a Cheerleader felt realistic to me in Other ways as my first wlw film and letting me know I COULD be loved, and Jennifer's Body depicted a realistic as fuck teen girl relationship that I imagine many relate to just not to the monster degree, but the actual styling of the films is still... Amanda Seyfried is utterly glam even styled plain Jane and you just accept that's how media is... thats "ordinary" to media. Not Kasuga. Who is still probably more model like than maybe an average woman, but at least they finally put someone a little less on the scale away-from-reality in front of my eyes you know?)

And by the end I think that's true of Yuki too. She's not a young woman. She's an adult working a job who's been pressured for being single her whole life. She's a woman with cooking as a hobby, and everyone assumes she does it to please a man or prep for a family: things she doesn't want. A lot of her experience feels extremely real, as a queer person. I remember being her age, girls asking who do you like in elementary, and feeling as awful as Yuki just standing there. I remember friends partnering off in high school, and not doing the same. I like that Yuki feels unique... in that I know people like her, but she's not a blueprint. She's not a pre written or pre assumed General path that perhaps outsides think we've gone on. She's not the: I knew as a teen, I came out, I feel pressure for x y z or I'm afraid of parents etc. While I love those stories too, because some of them can be relatable to some of us (the incredible story of two girls in love was very good for my heart when I was young). I like Yuki cause she's an Adult suddenly thinking about romance. An adult realizing she may be a lesbian, and exploring how lesbians live lives that make them happy. A lot of people don't realize until their adults, because society doesn't even give them awareness they can be anything but the majority (and lack of info and conservative environments etc can all increase this). I like it showing the education online and communities as helpful, it was for me in college and it is for people older. It's a nice thing. (I'm demi so I realize I'm biased but) I like that she didn't realize it until another person said she sounds in love, then she realized she is for the first time and explores it. I like that she gets to do this exploring as an adult: I think for some adults that exploring crushes is a first time, is a new journey when it seems others already are going through it and think it's easy, and I like Yuki showing us that. I loved again, that Yuki has her own hobbies and society pushes that into a heteronormative assumption about her... how many people have dealt with that, and that's a thing about our sexualities outside or dating. One can be single for ten years, but still your life may have some effect. In how people assume you do things for some gender you may not like. May choose hobbies for X when it doesn't factor in. May hit on you when you have no interest. I feel like Yukis experiences align with what a lot of queer people go through, people assuming they're straight and ignoring any other option as possible and making assumptions about them that are small (microagressions) but add up to pain over time. Her coworker assuming people could lime any gender was refreshing to her, to hear someone not assume things about her and was open to giving her the freedom to define and be her true self in their eyes was relieving.

Her seeing the Christmas couples pictures, and the lesbians in them. This tiny scene, but an example of why even "shallow" diversity marketing matters. Yeah, if I'm out and know myself and loud for a decade it probably isn't much to me. But when I was 12 I didn't even know anyone but straight people existed, it was all I saw, all I could saw (unless I found the one gay channel on cable that no one in my house watched so I didn't know existed yet). Like lol a yaoi manga some friend found was the first time any of us realized a person could date the same gender, and it seemed only in fiction could such a thing occur. I didnt know trans people existed until I saw a movie about a trans person and realized I felt like them nonstop. Like.. it's not much but when ypunger people grow up they saw their TV shows have a group of girls and some lesbians! Their games like The Last of Us Left Behind and Life is Strange had some recognition queer people exist. The ads on TV occasionally had a gay man or a lesbian. It was enough for THEM to know the world was broader than they'd otherwise think, that all of those were normal, and if they ever feel the same or have a friend who does now it will be another possible ordinary kind of person they understand! Ordinary thing. Seeing an ad for Yuki was her realizing dating her love, being with her love, is as normal as the straight people she felt isolated from her entire life. She can have her own life with Everything she wants in it, other women can. That's what diverse marketing does. A person who's never seen people like them feels seen and like they belong. People in general realize that there is a diversity of people and consider them all part of society, instead of having a narrower view of what's normal or not acceptable or not. (And god I could go into how... some very not good laws that limit what books say and what people can say around children so in public in general, can hurt all of this, can mean no lesbian in a cute couples ad, and therefore no lesbian teenager who realizes she's allowed to exist and there's people happy like her, no lesbian adult who realizes she can live a happy life and there's paths for her, no person in general who sees how so many diverse people are alike and all part of their world together... rather than a very small perception of what's normal versus what shouldn't exist... but if I delved into all that it'd get real heavy so back to show)

My point is

This show is a love letter to the ordinary life of queer women. To life generally. To liking who you are, and to others loving you for who you are. It feels like a warm embrace and I really recommend it.