true i was gonna say i liked how there were diverse skin tones in the background characters but i thought it was kinda crazy they made the one villain dark skinned and every supporting character korean. also i wish valentine was more complex cause she literally had no depth compared to all of the other characters. or i wish she had a personality change to be less violent and more polite manipulative with a better motive other than just being obssesed from first glance
I mean there are violent yakuza female love interest as well as the popularly loved tropey Mafia white Italians. Would you prefer that over a cartel leader? I feel like it's nice to see a narco-novella drama in a manhwa for once, I'm sick of all the godfather replicas and they usually make them too "honorable" despite how we know realistically how these gangs operate. Plus Valentine is portrayed as a bigger eye candy here than Red, who I believe is the real love interest.
And I find it ironic that y'all expect a Korean manhwa with asian origin to not features Korean characters as the main leads. There were plenty of vile Korean women in the whole story too, they're also treated mostly as background characters. Some of them are even pedophiles. I honestly don't see why you gotta bring colorism into this when this manhwa have no such commentary.
Nah, I definitely get you. Ofc they made dark skinned woman the agreesive one and the pale skinned woman the one to be just completely helpless to Val's whims. But I do like that they didn't make Jessica some innocent naive woman, she has her crazy and cruel moments like the rest of the characters.
Whoa. This was a really bad faith reading if what I said. I even acknowledged your points in my post Valentine is a main character, thats the difference. Shes where the yuri tag comes from. And being dark skinned and the way she is, isnt inherently a problem, but shes not well developed and is a well known stereotype so its hard to ignore. "Why are you bringing up colorism" is an odd thing to say. Everyone has biases. Colorism can be brought up where colorism may exist, including in Manhwas. This isnt hard to understand, so I'm assuming you just don't agree or care to understand why I brought it up. So no point in engaging further, thanks.
Totally agree!! That's why I still enjoy the story. I just really wish Valentine was more developed as a character. She feels very static to me. Its moreso Jessica's story being told so I guess it makes sense why. But since Valentine is this stereotype and her character isnt even backed up by the best writing, yet shes the "love interest", its just like, yikes.
Yeah exactly this. And she's Latina iirc, which makes it a little worse. She is a walking Latina and darker skinned stereotype, and shes supposed to be the "love interest". I feel like even Jessica's mother has more depth than Valentine. I just wish there was more to her. Maybe there will be. But its rather glaring how they wrote her to be
Also... Just gonna say thay if Red ends up being the real love interest, that doesn't really help your point. That makes Valentine not only a stereotype with less than ideal character development, but shes also disposable... she's quite literally the antagonist of this story already, and everyone's screaming toxic yuri, but if she gets disposed of as even the love interest, thats like, 200 times worse and not the hill anyone should wanna die on when talking about how colorism isnt relevant
Right. Because you CHOOSE to see Valentine as this "dark skin violent stereotype" when Val is the way she is, as explained in the story, because of her bad childhood and THAT SHE IS A CARTEL LEADER. Nobody else brought up she's dark (not even the manhwa) other than you
Ignore the hate you're right. The story doesn't have to "point out" she's darker skinned for it to still adhere to fetishization and sterotypes. You see this bullshit in yaoi too. It's not a coincidence when 90% of the time someone who has dark skin is being portrayed they are the aggressor. I don't read Yuri much I clicked cause I liked the cover but seeing a dark skinned woman protrayed like this for the 90th time is disappointing, I just refuse to read stories like this atp.
Thank you!!! Exactly!! Lol dont worry I have 0 interest in engaging with people that dont use their brain. Its incredibly annoying and disheartening whenever I see this trope (and youre right its in BL too and I refuse to read them) and the only reason I'm even reading this one still is because Valentine is barely even an actual character, barely shows up in a memorable way or long enough to even stick in my mind. Which is worse tbh. I'm not impressed and I need to avoid shit like this for my sanity
As much as i love this story and the yuri potential (bc we dont even see much of it tbh) i just have to acknowledge the fact that the only other woc that has dark skin is made to be super dominant, aggressive, violent, and extremely sexual and its literally the only thing about this comic that bothers me for an otherwise very engaging and unique story. Like, those traits don't INHERENTLY mean anything (ofc people like Valentine exist and portraying them is not inherently wrong/harmful) but it would be ignorant to ignore implications and existing stigmas. Ik everyone's just talking about how hot she is and yeah she is but that just proves the point more to me, tbh.
Making it clear again that I love this comic and the experience reading it but her character design is a tad troublesome to me. Personally I dont find her all that sympathetic either (maybe she isnt meant to be) and i mentioned in a comment lower that I would normally devour toxic yuri but its too one sided and heavy on Valentine's part for me to even like. Not to mention theyre barely ever together and have like 5 scenes in the same room with similar things happening... theyre having sex with Valentine's being aggressive about it and Jessica telling her to wait, stop and/or looking like shes in pain and just enduring her tantrums. Like she takes out her anger sexually on Jessica and its just not enjoyable. The way Jessica hurts Valentine is nowhere near the same as vice versa. If this makes for a dynamic you like then power to you, no hate, im just not into them as a relationship, even a toxic one, because to me its just sad, underdeveloped, and hard to look at