Black Flag Alpha Grovels

Okay so I’m going to give an honest review of this manhwa including spoilers and trigger warnings so here we go. Overall I’d give it a 6 out of 10. I’ve read worse, but there were lots of things that were just… not great for me.

Let’s start with the trigger warning type stuff:

1) Starting with the most minor… the alpha lies and manipulates the omega into a relationship. Yeah that’s right… that’s the most minor. Not a great start.

2) After the alpha gets the mc to sign a contract and agree to carry his baby, he keeps him literally imprisoned. They don’t specify for how long, or if they did I don’t remember, but either way… any length of time imprisoned is a bad time.

3) And rounding off with the most major (reminder - trigger warning)… the alpha forces the omega to take a heat inducing pill, leaves him alone for 24 hours during which time he becomes very ill, afterwards the alpha returns to his side, and promptly rapes and knots the mc while he is bleeding and injured from a massive cut on his arm. This was a pretty horrific scene for me and I feel like people with sensitivity to rape scenes need to be aware of it going in.


With all of that being said… I did enjoy the runaway omega/chasing arc. The actual time the omega spent on the run was lengthier than in most manhwas and it was also funnier. The scene with the dudes in tactical gear getting basically Home Alone pranked out in the woods absolutely cracked me up.

Despite the chasing arc being longer, I do still think the omega gave in to quickly. Once they come face to face after the lengthy chase, all it takes is one strongly worded conversation and the omega agrees to come home.

Thankfully, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows once the mc is home and there’s even some evidence of ptsd, which I found to be realistic and I appreciate the fact that it was included. Specifically the scene where they have sex for the first time after the omega returns and has a flashback to the rape, and basically says, “if you can be sweet to be now, why weren’t you sweet to me then? This just proves that you could be sweet and gentle and just chose not to be.” I wish there had been a few more scenes like that.


Now on to the less dramatic stuff… here are a few things I liked about this manhwa:

1) Realistic looking potato baby. I thing folks are just so used to the fancy manhwa baby face that is so common, that we’ve forgotten that most human babies come out looking like a potato. I enjoyed that.

2) Once they actually get together as a couple and start consensually having sex, the alpha is INTO IT. I cannot stand it CANNOT STAND IT when a top is just thrusting with a bored look on his face. Like, goddamn, give us a grunt or something dude, you look like you’d rather be anywhere else than inside your beloved right now. That does not happen in this manhwa. I love a participatory top.

3) The alpha is the main child rearing parent for the first few years of their daughter’s life for two reasons. One because he wants to support his partner’s dreams and two, because he feels guilty about forcing a pregnancy on the mc in the first place and feels he should make up for that for taking on more of the grunt work in parenting. I like that and I wish I saw that more in metaverse settings.

4) The comedy in this was actually kinda cute. The animals in this manhwa act very crazy and it made me giggle. Also the grandmother secretly being supportive and a bit of a shipper got me going at the end.


Anyway, all in all, the big red flags at the beginning of the manhwa really threw this one for me and even though I enjoyed parts of it, I really think that the author either should have either toned down the heavy stuff or, alternatively, treated it with more gravity and weight instead of trying to live somewhere between those two options. But it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever read and I did like some of it, so … like I said 6/10.