Five Figure Fanwork Exchange

Title: Shishi no Odoriko (translates as "The Lion Dances With A Loved One", I believe)



Media: Explicit BL/yaoi manga

Length: 1 volume

Where to find it: It's not licensed in English, and I recommend the 2nd Life Scans scanlation. You can find it in Japanese via the creator's Pixiv.

What is it, in summary?
Yoru has been forced into prostitution after it came out that he was misleading audiences as a circus performer. He is not the beautiful fox hybrid people were paying to see: he's just a normal human who loves to dance. He's purchased outright by Amran, a high-ranking lion hybrid who happens to run a bridal company and who's loved by his staff. But it turns out that Yoru and Amran have a longer history than Yoru realised, when it's revealed that Amran has been trying to support and save him since a chance encounter long ago.

What do you love about it?:
IT'S GORGEOUS. And, as someone whose favourite yaoi experiences of the late 1990s/early 2000s were Ai no Kusabi, Mirage of Blaze and Sukisyo, it gives me massive nostalgic delight despite being from 2021.

I find Amran and Yoru delightfully iddy and sweet despite the story's kind of ludicrous set-up. In IRL loving your rapist is unhealthy, but frankly, if your rapist is a man who can turn into a lion, you probably have bigger problems. ☜(ﾟヮﾟ☜)

I'm not someone who's very good at enthusiastic adoration, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about this manga for m o n t h s. A downtrodden redhead who loves music and dance being saved by someone they don't really trust then coming to love them in the end is everything I've ever wanted from a smut oneshot.

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?
I just want more! More smut, more of the characters interacting with each other, more in this weird world of hybrids where hybrid/human marriage is frowned upon. I wrote a fic about Amran and Yoru getting married—I'd love to see what someone imagines happens further down the line for them, or another take on how their relationship might go. Make Amran cry more please.

I'd love for Havil to somehow find his way into a sexual arrangement with Yoru and Amran, or else just for Amran and Yoru to interact with Havil independently from each other, maybe complaining about something in their relationship? I don't know, but Havil is chief captain shit-stirrer so set him up with a pot and watch him go. I'd also love to see Lailah and Nina kiss (lebian catgirls in my yaoi? be still my big bi heart).

Content notes: The manga is very smutty, and includes dubiously consensual sex, involuntary prostitution, and one chapter including explicit bestiality, which can be skimmed or skipped (it's very clearly telegraphed, and the narrative relevance happens outside the pages where you can see a lion's sex face).