To the reader noting the chaps they're currently crying on: Best keep tissues handy bubba because this isn't the last time I promise you. This manhwa is peak storytelling. Straight up cinematic. Almost like watching a dark, noir film.The panels do the camera work for you. The lighting in this artwork alone warrants a separate study and analysis. And the plot and characters? Good heavens. This is how you create a masterpiece narrative using the "show don't tell" technique. There's a lot of time skips and fragmented storytelling that only starts clicking into place as you keep reading. She gives you a puzzle piece, then leaves it at that. She leaves you wondering, and finally gives you the other piece much later. This fragmented non linear narration ultimately is a test of the reader's patience and capacity to sit with complexity. It asks if you can suspend judgement as a reader for the character in front of you, and wait to hear their full story. It requires a willingness to engage with depth.
Deeply complex characters. Flawed, wrong, yet showing capacity to repent and evolve. Achingly human. Beautifully broken, and unforgettable. This is the kind of storytelling we need in our times. It asks us to understand what our own capacity for empathy is, as we try to understand the deeply flawed characters in front of us. Ultimately, what TJ, Ian and Jo all ask us as readers is--do we have the capacity to truly love humans? Humans who are inherently flawed, imperfect beings, broken by circumstances and complicated beyond comprehension at times? Imagine a shard of glass trying to image what being a whole mirror feels like. Only another shard can understand what being broken feels like. Ian and TJ are broken souls who are the complete mirror to each other, unable to understand wholeness when all they've know is their perpetual state of brokenness. Just as our empathy has limits, so does that of the characters in this story. Theoretical understanding cannot substitute experiential knowing. Jo cannot, and should not, be written off a mere plot device or tool. He is crucial in establishing these key points. Without him, Ian would never have known what it was he was missing, and trying to define and understand so desperately with his love for TJ. Without Ian, he wouldn't realize that being well meaning alone doesn't suffice in real, complicated relationships with complex, flawed humans.
TJ and Ian bring the kind of baggage that would freak most people out. Unfortunately a lot of people couldn't sit with this complexity, hence the nonsensical dissolution into the harrassment, fights and threats to the author. Anyone fixated on the endgame alone in this manhwa has completely lost the plot and the point of this story I'd argue. I've read countless stories by now and I don't say this lightly when I say this right here is in my top 3.
I won't repeat what others have already said in the comments here, but this story is heavy on metaphors, symbolism and thematic concerns that aren't for the weak of stomach and heart. Abuse, abandonment, racism, obsession, addiction, self loathing, guilt, repentence just to list a few. And beyond all these, ultimately, a victory of love. Love that is terrifying, broken, imperfect, but love that is complete surrender.
To Doyak: Thank you for not compromising on your vision an your story. You told your story as you wanted, and as it came to you. No "one" story is meant for all, and it's ok. This story has no compulsion to be understood by everyone who reads it, just as TJ and Ian have no compulsion to be understood by everyone around them.
To the reader noting the chaps they're currently crying on: Best keep tissues handy bubba because this isn't the last time I promise you. This manhwa is peak storytelling. Straight up cinematic. Almost like watching a dark, noir film.The panels do the camera work for you. The lighting in this artwork alone warrants a separate study and analysis. And the plot and characters? Good heavens. This is how you create a masterpiece narrative using the "show don't tell" technique. There's a lot of time skips and fragmented storytelling that only starts clicking into place as you keep reading. She gives you a puzzle piece, then leaves it at that. She leaves you wondering, and finally gives you the other piece much later. This fragmented non linear narration ultimately is a test of the reader's patience and capacity to sit with complexity. It asks if you can suspend judgement as a reader for the character in front of you, and wait to hear their full story. It requires a willingness to engage with depth.
Deeply complex characters. Flawed, wrong, yet showing capacity to repent and evolve. Achingly human. Beautifully broken, and unforgettable. This is the kind of storytelling we need in our times. It asks us to understand what our own capacity for empathy is, as we try to understand the deeply flawed characters in front of us. Ultimately, what TJ, Ian and Jo all ask us as readers is--do we have the capacity to truly love humans? Humans who are inherently flawed, imperfect beings, broken by circumstances and complicated beyond comprehension at times? Imagine a shard of glass trying to image what being a whole mirror feels like. Only another shard can understand what being broken feels like. Ian and TJ are broken souls who are the complete mirror to each other, unable to understand wholeness when all they've know is their perpetual state of brokenness. Just as our empathy has limits, so does that of the characters in this story. Theoretical understanding cannot substitute experiential knowing. Jo cannot, and should not, be written off a mere plot device or tool. He is crucial in establishing these key points. Without him, Ian would never have known what it was he was missing, and trying to define and understand so desperately with his love for TJ. Without Ian, he wouldn't realize that being well meaning alone doesn't suffice in real, complicated relationships with complex, flawed humans.
TJ and Ian bring the kind of baggage that would freak most people out. Unfortunately a lot of people couldn't sit with this complexity, hence the nonsensical dissolution into the harrassment, fights and threats to the author. Anyone fixated on the endgame alone in this manhwa has completely lost the plot and the point of this story I'd argue. I've read countless stories by now and I don't say this lightly when I say this right here is in my top 3.
I won't repeat what others have already said in the comments here, but this story is heavy on metaphors, symbolism and thematic concerns that aren't for the weak of stomach and heart. Abuse, abandonment, racism, obsession, addiction, self loathing, guilt, repentence just to list a few. And beyond all these, ultimately, a victory of love. Love that is terrifying, broken, imperfect, but love that is complete surrender.
To Doyak: Thank you for not compromising on your vision an your story. You told your story as you wanted, and as it came to you. No "one" story is meant for all, and it's ok. This story has no compulsion to be understood by everyone who reads it, just as TJ and Ian have no compulsion to be understood by everyone around them.