comments on bls that deal with trauma or mental health are always so frustrating it genuinely feels like readers here have no idea how any of that works irl
Fr. I get not understanding the character, but not even trying to empathize with the character is a whole different thing. It’s so easy for people to read stories like AITA and just say “break up”, especially if the partner seems abusive in any way, but they don’t consider the fact that it could be hard for these people because they’ve also had some good times and good memories with the partner. It’s hard for people to cut others off because our brains tend to make us think of many different solutions to save whatever we’re trying to save instead of doing the right thing. Like, at some point I even knew how unhealthy my relationship was and how much my partner was hurting me, but I still stayed because I always thought about the good times we had and how bad it would be for me to just throw it all away. It’s just like many abuse victims. They could’ve had a good time growing up but then their parents suddenly turn on them. This can cause the child to still have a sense of filial duty and will obey their abuser. In the case of Woo Won, I’m kind if assuming that he was starting to get abused kinda early on, like age 7 or smth, and now, he’s trapped in the mindset that “he’s stronger than me” or “he has more power and control over me.” Not to mention his father holding his mother’s safety over his head. I can’t help but feel for these characters. I mean, one reason why I loved this story and felt captivated by it was because of how well the author portrayed mental illness, that it’s not something to romanticize. I also related to the characters a lot. I’m so sorry to ramble, I just got pretty upset that people won’t bother to try and empathize or anything.
I'm so sorry to know that happened to you... I hope you're having or will have a better relationship that's not toxic!
But as for Woowon, I can relate to him, because I also got verbally and physically abused by my parents since I was around 6 years old, the physical abuse stopped when I was around 18 but the verbal abuse is still going on sometimes, now I'm 24 years old.
Honestly, of course I'm traumatized and have hatred towards my parents, but it's not like I could do anything about it, if I reported my parents when I was still in school, how do I get money to keep on living..? If I report them now for abuse, no one would bother cuz they would think I'm all grown up now, I should be able to manage my live and why bringing up the past..?
It's also hard to report anything in my country if you don't have money, sometimes it's still hard even if you got money, the government and law sucks.
I’m sorry to hear about what you’re going through and I hope you’re in a better place in life now. I’m simply just asking the readers to empathize with Woo Won. In my comments, I just talked about the mental and psychological perspective and didn’t talk about the financial perspective since I thought it would make my comment too long. Thank you for bringing this up though because it is a very important part of why people can’t just report their abusers. It’s just frustrating to see people calling him crazy or stupid about not doing anything even though he seems to be doing better in life. I’m sorry if there was a misunderstanding and if I said anything to offend you.
Thank you, and no I don't feel offended, I do agree with you on your initial comment. I thought I just wanted to share how I can relate to Woowon because I kinda have the same situation, that's all.
Honestly, I think there are some BL character that I would consider to be dumb because they kept on doing the same mistakes or something, but not with Woowon, he's not crazy or stupid because we can clearly see that he has the will to change and to make his life better since he met Seo An, it's just that not everything is going smoothly and it's not easy to really change your life 180° to be a whole lot better.
I really love BL with a great plot and realistic & relatable characters like this one, some of others that I like are Payback and Love For Sale, you should read it if you haven't, I believe you would also like it. (=・ω・=)
I’m glad to hear that I didn’t offend you. I also agree with everything you said. I love stories with realistic and relatable characters too! Thank you for your recommendations :) I’ll be sure to read them (๑•ㅂ•)و✧
No worries! Hope you'll have a great day ahead! (๑❛ᴗ❛๑)
Guys I know that he’s taller, buffer, and generally stronger than his father, but you probably don’t know what it’s like to stand up to your abuser because it’s actually super hard. It’s easy to tell others to break up with their partners in those stories, it’s easy to tell Woo Won to just report his dad, but it’s actually so much harder to do that. Woo Won was raised by being abused by his father, so he’s still in that mindset right now, even as an adult. It’s called trauma for a reason. It sticks with you even when you forget about it or think you’ve “outgrown” it. And now, his “father” is even using his mother as blackmail. The thing is, even if he were to report his father for domestic abuse, it would likely be taken as a grain of salt by the police since Woo Won doesn’t have a lot of evidence right now. No voice recordings, no terrible bruises, no anything. It’s just going to be his word against his father. The sad thing is that there are many cases just like his in real life, yet you can’t just tell those people to report the issue since it’s almost always overlooked. My point is, Woo Won just can’t report his father and everything will be okay. The world doesn’t play out like that. Just try to understand and empathize with Woo Won and what he’s going through instead of calling him stupid or crazy for not beating up his dad. Not to mention if he beats his dad up, his dad can report him for assault since he’s going to have actual evidence on his body.