At least for a little bit bc although to the readers it was obvious, for him it must be such a shock and I would imagine, a betrayal. He laid out his feelings like the night before and at the start was basically coerced to participate in cultural traditions (which we have no way of knowing if they were even real, I have a feeling Ian/Ain simply told him all of that to convince MC to have sex with him which I had a off feeling about the entire time). The process low-key reminded me of grooming in a way (??) where ML was molding MC into the behavior that he wanted without the MC knowing he was doing these acts with his real husband-to-be (or wife as they say here for some reason).
The entire time I was thinking what could possibly be a good enough reason for this that would have me going “okay, you know what, I get that” and I couldn’t come up with one. Closest was to see how MC would treat the servants/get a glimpse at the MC’s real personality or smth. I figure it’s closer to the ML treating the MC like the wounded rabbit: he wanted to have the MC have a strong emotional bond with him by being there during his first month of transition, have MC rely on him fully the way nobles from the south seem to do with their servants (maybe he thought MC wouldn’t if he met ML as his husband), and as a result would be forever grateful and tied to ML’s side.
Idk, I’m definitely looking forward to see what happens next. Does the MC distance himself with this new knowledge, or does he immediately give in?
At least for a little bit bc although to the readers it was obvious, for him it must be such a shock and I would imagine, a betrayal. He laid out his feelings like the night before and at the start was basically coerced to participate in cultural traditions (which we have no way of knowing if they were even real, I have a feeling Ian/Ain simply told him all of that to convince MC to have sex with him which I had a off feeling about the entire time). The process low-key reminded me of grooming in a way (??) where ML was molding MC into the behavior that he wanted without the MC knowing he was doing these acts with his real husband-to-be (or wife as they say here for some reason).
The entire time I was thinking what could possibly be a good enough reason for this that would have me going “okay, you know what, I get that” and I couldn’t come up with one. Closest was to see how MC would treat the servants/get a glimpse at the MC’s real personality or smth. I figure it’s closer to the ML treating the MC like the wounded rabbit: he wanted to have the MC have a strong emotional bond with him by being there during his first month of transition, have MC rely on him fully the way nobles from the south seem to do with their servants (maybe he thought MC wouldn’t if he met ML as his husband), and as a result would be forever grateful and tied to ML’s side.
Idk, I’m definitely looking forward to see what happens next. Does the MC distance himself with this new knowledge, or does he immediately give in?