*reads your comment about Taku trying to get the two to be his subject*
I would like to see that ...
This is why I made the prediction that Jowoon would end up doing the photoshoot with Haesoo, Taku is just much too interested in their relationship through subtle questions and behaviours to play it off as a passing interest. There was also the talk in the earlier chapters I believe where Taku talks of photographing Jowoon but it fell through, so there is an interest in having Taku as his model.
Either way all I want is 3P ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
Jowoon as his model*
oops correction
Oh man, right! This is sort of his way in to capture two men he's desired to photograph in the most revealing of ways? I'm surprised Haesoo hasn't realized what Taku's work as an artist is about: unveiling, undressing, and straight-eyed observant voyeurism. Figuratively and literally stripping his models. And that's also what this webtoon is as well, the laying bare of two very complicated people and their motivations and the lies they tell themselves and/ or others?
I am so not expecting this manga to go any predictable direction and I'd honestly be disappointed if it did. They could give me a 3P, a 2P, or a very open 1 1 1 ending and I'd be pleased as punch. My only hope is that the author keeps being as deep/ honest about their twisted co-dependencies rather than rallying behind any of them as a woob or a sociopathic villain or a smol boi who must be protected. They're more fascinating as complex people with "ugly" sides to them.
Gimme some grown ass men with deep seated issues that may never be resolved.
The best of the best comments I've read here so far, even the some of the replies damn. I wasn't able to see that kind of perspective
I wouldn’t be surprised if Taku’s ultimate goal was to get both step-brothers as the subject of his camera shoot because the illicit, taboo, and toxic nature of it is so twisted, human, and intimate.
Looking at Taku as an artist who “undresses" his models with his lens (be it his eyes or camera), laying them bare emotionally or physically, he’s already seen through to the truth of Haesoo’s article and his enmeshed relationship with Jowoon. It clearly both excites and inspires him. (See his dogged pursuit of Haesoo as a model and sexual partner, whom he presses for details of losing his virginity to his step-brother during their first sexual encounter).
Haesoo as a subject isn’t complete without his equally dishonest and obsessive counterpart, Jowoon. They both made each other what they are. And I think that’s what Taku is drawn too — this obsessive desire both of them have to control, wound, and hold the other that leaves them distorted and hurting, but ever circling.
Taku’s behavior thus far isn’t that of someone who wants to break that cycle, but of someone who wants to observe and potentially participate. And while I don’t think this is an appropriate relationship between a professional artist and his living subject and makes me very uneasy from an art industry perspective, it’s just twisted enough to match the twisted relationship of the two brothers.
Love and Hate is shaping up to be one of the most literature adjacent webtoons to date for its pacing, character flaws, motivations, and relationships. It’s gonna be *peak* messy and I am l i v i n g for it.